Personality Reinforcement: The Boss vs. A Performer
For a very long period, I have been undergoing a painful transformation. Everything I have written in the past about burnout, meaning, etc., is related to it. The good sign is that I used the word “transformation.” It means changes, improvements, and evolving to a new state. However, by no means is it as easy as it sounds.
Today, I want to share a big milestone in this transformation. As I can’t talk much in detail, my views and feelings are the best channels to depict the plot.
It all starts with a few brightest days and a few darkest nights.
I was a high performer. I knew what I should do, and I did it more efficiently and with better quality. I knew what the project needed, and I planned it way ahead and executed it on time. I knew that I lacked certain knowledge for future tasks, and I learned it voluntarily and improved the team’s way of working. I knew the organization was looking for a future, so I proactively supported laying out a strategic roadmap.
Then, when the opportunity arose, I became a manager.
I doubled down on my planning and analytical skills. We, as a team, delivered. High standard, high quality results. Left our “potential” competitors thousands of meters behind. However, I felt extreme pain, both mentally and physically. I was skeptical about the sustainability of such ways. I was cynical about the organization's structures and interactions. I lost myself in the turmoil of group conflicts from everywhere.
The sign of failure has appeared. I didn’t know what to do with it.
These were the darkest days of my professional life.
Then came the twist.
A book. Yes, again, a book.
Being the Boss: The 3 Imperatives for Becoming a Great Leader. From Linda A.Hill.
It brutally unveiled all my fears, disgust, mistakes, and failures. It feels that it is written for me, exclusively, reviving all situations around me.
If you were a high performer in your work before becoming a manager, you may find the journey into management particularly difficult. Because of their previous success, stars are understandably reluctant to give up the attitudes and practices they think produced their success thus far, and they're unwilling to change themselves. They don't know how to develop or coach people because they never needed much coaching themselves, or so they believe. They don't know how to deal with people who lack their motivation. Because they've never failed, they've had little practice reflecting on and learning from experience. No wonder many former stars turn into mediocre bosses. If you were a star, be aware that the very success that produced your promotion can now work against you.
Becoming an effective manager requires that you not only acquire new skills and knowledge but also undergo difficult personal change.
And yes, I am ready for the change. I know it will mean a lot of effort as I need to practice things I haven’t done before or even disdain to do because of ignorance or natural tendency.
Simplified to the extreme, there are 3 Imperatives of an effective manager. Manage yourself, manage your network, and manage your team. The writing talks to me as it doesn’t conceptualize the management work too much. Hill is crystal clear that a manager’s paradoxes define the fundamental nature of management and how the group and a manager are interdependent. This interdependency forces you to take care of your 3 networks, which I ignored to the maximum. Operational, strategic, and developmental networks.
However, I would be careful to recommend this book to everyone. It is very personal experience related. You might not find it as insightful or life-changing as I do if you don’t experience a series of similar crazy situations.
For those who are interested in management from a broader and complete perspective, I would recommend the following books.
The Essential Drucker. A summary or “table of contents” of essential works of a true expert in management, Peter Drucker.
The Five Most Important Questions You will Ever Ask About Your Organization. Again, from Peter Drucker.
Managing Oneself. Actionable advice on finding your strengths, weaknesses, learning, and values in professional life. Again, from Peter Drucker.
The Effective Executive. An extension of Managing Oneself into organizational effectiveness. Again, from Peter Drucker.
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Quite similar to the above two. However, you might find it more approachable. Stephen R. Covey.
I am saying this because I experienced it in this way. I have a mentor, a great manager, who warned me several times about what it means to be a manager. I thought I listened. But it never went anywhere. Those words are floating clouds unattached to my managing system. When there is no link, there is no action. When there is no action, there are no changes and learnings. Now, I am in a corner, not able to avoid them. The book, showering down like a storm, forcefully links those concepts with the rest of my system aspects. Painful, yet it clicked.
So, let’s see. It is only the start. There is a long way to go. There are new types of challenges to take, on which I have basically zero practice.
Let’s end with another brutal quote.
Imagine you have no influence. That means you and your group are at the mercy of what others demand of you. Yes, power can corrupt, as Lord Acton said, but powerlessness corrupts too. Witness all those throughout history who have explained the harm they did by claiming, “I had no choice. I had to do what I was told.”