The Perfect Boss

Wouldn't it be great if we had the perfect boss? Don't we all long for a boss who understands us, appreciates us, trusts us, gives us what we need, and knows when to push and when to get out of the way? I wonder how much time is spent in offices every day lamenting the shortcomings of our bosses. And it makes sense. If we had the perfect boss, perhaps we could do our jobs better, feel more supported, accomplish more, and enjoy our work a little more. But we never have the perfect boss.

If we had the perfect boss, perhaps we could do our jobs better.

Interestingly, we spend far more time thinking about having the perfect boss than about being the perfect boss. No one is perfect, of course, but there are things we could do that would make us better bosses in much the same way we wish our bosses were better. What if our team had a boss who understands them, appreciates them, trusts them, gives them what they need, and knows when to push and when to get out of the way? Before we spend too much energy looking at what our boss should be doing differently, perhaps we look at what we could be doing differently for the people who work for us.

Robert Sutton, the Stanford organizational psychologist, offers a profound thought that gives us a place to begin. In his list of 12 Things Good Bosses Believe, the first is this: “I have a flawed and incomplete understanding of what it feels like to work for me.” That is an uncomfortable idea for any boss. We know our intentions, our reasoning, and the pressures we're carrying. Our people experience something else: the decisions we make, the words we use, the expectations we set, and the consequences of our behavior. Our understanding of what it is like to work for us is always incomplete.

 “I have a flawed and incomplete understanding of what it feels like to work for me.”

So perhaps instead of worrying first about what is happening above us, we can focus on what is happening below us. This brings us to a profound thought about leadership and life: Give what you need. If you need a better boss, be a better boss. If you need more understanding, give more understanding. If you want more trust, give more trust. If you want someone to listen more carefully, listen more carefully. If you want clearer expectations, give clearer expectations.

This brings us to a profound thought about leadership and life: Give what you need.

This doesn't mean that we shouldn't expect anything from our own bosses. Sometimes the problem really is upstream, and we have every right to want better leadership from the people above us. But we have considerably more influence over the experience of the people who work for us than we do over the person who works above us. And I have witnessed an interesting phenomenon in my years as a coach. Often, the boss's behavior is shaped by the person reporting to them (more on this next week).

Maybe the perfect boss is not someone we find. Maybe it is someone we become. And perhaps the place to start is with a simple recognition: we have a flawed and incomplete understanding of what it is like to work for us. Once we accept that, we can become curious about the experience we are creating for other people.

What is one thing your boss needs to fix? Does your leadership need a checkup on that? Keep going down the list.

Give what you need.