Poll coming soon if you don’t see one.
If you’re a lead, supervisor, manager, director, or whatever title, and you have people under you that must do as you say, how do you lead them? Are you a lead by example type boss or a do as I say not as I do type boss?
I don’t know if there’s a way to summarize the way I lead to fit into your categories.
Of course, results are important.
As boss, I’ve described my job in various terms. I’m there to blaze a trail in front of my team and then tidy up behind them. I need to be able to competently do the job in order to be able to articulate policies and procedures properly. I need to understand failure of a team project or team member can likely be traced back to my shortcomings in preparing the foundation of the project or individual training. I want to hire people who can perform the job better than I can and then let them have their space to do the job while I maintain a general awareness of what’s going on. I’m there to represent the individuals within my department to the boardroom and to the rest of the individual managers. No one gives my people shit except me and don’t test me on this. My team has to respect me as a manager and want me to be their leader. But I’m not their friend or their peer.
So, as my employee - do as I say. But don’t be afraid to ask me why I say what I do. If I’m wrong, I’ll change what I’m saying and thank you for pointing it out to me.
My management toolbox consists of two items;
They have served me well.
I’m a PM so I need to get people to do things for me with no actual power to reward or punish.
I work very hard to ensure that I always take responsibility when something goes wrong and give credit when it goes right. Not only does that make my teams more willing to work on something I’ve asked for over another PM’s request when they have a conflict, it works to my favour with both their managment and mine as well.
I guess that would qualify as lead by example in your poll although their jobs and mine bear little resemblance to each other.
PM?
I tend to discriminate between leading my group, and managing them. Leadership is sort of easy because it’s very innate. I just try to be my awesome self, set high standards in the way I approach science, and hang my baws out on occasion. This works pretty well - I’m ten years in to my independent career and results are good.
Managing the group is a different story - I don’t feel like I’m very good at this. Heading up a research group, though, it’s really all about the leadership and I probably get away with weaknesses in management that would get punished in a more corporate environment.
Sorry, Project Manager.
OK. I thought I heard those initials before, but I just couldn’t remember what they stood for.
Is anyone going to be willing to claim to be a “do as I say, not as I do” type?
I sort of expected to be justifying my “managing by walking around” schtick here.
I’ve worked for a couple of bosses, as know of some others who had no problem with the attitude of, “I make the rules, I don’t have to follow them.” So I know that people like that exist.
The purpose of this thread isn’t to judge one style over another. I’m just curious how many people identify as one type of boss or the other.
And yes, I know that being a boss means that you’ll have duties and privileges that your underlings don’t. I’m not counting things like the authority to hire or fire, give raises or promotions, or other types of authority you may have that your subordinates don’t.
I’m thinking more along the line of, you expect your employees to always come into work on time. Do you always show up on time because you want to lead by example, or do you show up whenever you feel like it because you’re in charge and you don’t have to come in on time if you don’t want to? That sort of thing.
I’m over three people.
I did not ask to be a supervisor. Somehow they ended up reporting to me.
I don’t like being a supervisor, and I don’t like telling people what to do. So I do as little “managing” as possible. This works great with two of the people under me; they just do their jobs, and I don’t have to do anything. The third one… I’m not sure what to do with. I would love to fire him, but I doubt I have the justification.
I was in a similar situation once. At my last permanent job the lead left to work in another department. The rest of us considered ourselves equals. Then the only other person more senior than I left, there was only me and two coworkers. To make a long story short, it turned out that the two people in charge of the department had thought of me as being a lead, more-or-less, but I didn’t realize it until to late and the old lead came back.
I expect my team to be on time because they’re paid hourly and we open at 9:30AM, but I usually come in around 10AM because I’m salaried and often stay late. Also, actually opening up the office is not my task, it’s theirs. They don’t have to stay late looking for the missing ten cents on the daily reconciliation, but I do.
I would love to be able to just tell them what to do, then show them how to do it and move on to my own work, but this isn’t usually a successful strategy for me. I also have to check and correct their work after they’ve done it, try to figure out what led to the errors, and then realize they won’t learn anything from any of that and do it all the same way tomorrow.
As much as I love people, I can’t stand being a manager. It blows my mind when I ask them to do something and they decide on their own to do something completely different, and then it turns out that their way doesn’t work.
Clearly I have no authority whatsoever 
I guess I’d say I am a reluctant manager.
I can see the advantage of “do as I say, not as I do”. I know the the reasons why an unusual action or a shortcut might work better then the standard procedure, but I don’t trust that my employees can make that distinction. Thus, they have to do things “by the book”, while I occasionally do things that I explicitly have told them not to do.
I can empathize with moejoe. I keep telling my prep cook to cut the onions for the stir-fry bigger, and cut the onions for the curry smaller, but he gravitates towards a one-size-fits-all cut for both projects. He also doubles recipes or makes slightly larger batches of things so he only has to do each thing once a week, but that means my line cooks are serving week-old stuff! And just like the onions, if I don’t constantly correct him, he tends to do whatever is best for him. His scope is limited to the back kitchen. He does a project or makes a recipe, and moves on with his day, and he has no idea about what happens to that food after its out of his hands. I have to over see that food from the time it enters the door to the time its presented to a hungry customer.
What I am responsible for in my kitchen would be done by two people in any other restaurant. (My Boss is clueless because he did my job 10 years ago, when the menu has half as big and less was made from scratch). Since I don’t have time to guide my cooks like I would like to, I have to set-up their jobs in way that lets them succede. I call it “idiot-proofing”, because even an idiot can do things correctly when the easiest way is the correct way. On the one hand, I have a kitchen that could stumble along effectively with a mindless staff of zombies. On the other hand, my cooks can’t think on their feet because they never really have to.
Overall, I think I am a bad manager. In order to accomplish my other responsibilities, I have been lazy and unavailable to my staff. I generally find that I can solve a problem by just doing it myself, but that tactic doesn’t address the issue that caused the problem. I am in way over my head and barely digging myself out. In the future, I think this job will be a great learning experience, but for now, it is a frustrating vicious circle that I can’t get out of.
What, no option for “through bloody terror”?
Or “Management by perkele”.
Wow, everyone here is such great bosses!
I’m not the sort of boss who wants to “mentor” you or be your “coach”. I don’t have an “open door policy”. I don’t care about your “work life balance” or how “fullfilled” you are. I’m not going to “shield you from upper management” or “resolve internal conflicts”. I’m not going to provide clever managementism or really any sort of “leadership” whatsoever. I don’t want to hear about your personal life. I barely want to hear about your professional life. Really I would prefer our interactions to stick to mostly vague emailed instructions and manatory performance review sessions where I will treat everything about your personality I don’t like as a professional shortcomming
Mostly what I will do is spend 90% of my time ingratiating myself to the higher-ups so I can rise to a more senior level of mid-management where I won’t be directly responsible for anything. I’ll probably take any good ideas you may have (if you ever, in fact, have one) and pass them off as my own. I’ll mostly be going around telling everyone how awesome my projects are and how we are going to come in under budget and ahead of schedule, while trying to figure out which one of you interchangeable carbon blobs to toss under the bus should it not. Mostly I’ll micromanage every task you know how to do and leave you alone to figure out how to do those tasks you don’t know how to do. I’ll be sure to check in frequently though, mostly to tell you what I don’t like about what you did. But not how to do it correctly.
Why do I even want to be a “boss”? I don’t really. They gave me this job because I’m kind of tall-ish and speak in an autoritative manner as if I know what I’m talking about. Mostly I do this because it takes me one step closer to my dream job - collecting large paychecks.
I think I’ve worked for msmith537!
I voted Both/none/other since it’s complicated. Leading by example is usually the best approach, but sometimes it doesn’t fit the circumstances.
Sticking by your word, and expecting the same from your employees is important.
Active listening is a big part of it. Your people are telling you something, and you’re the one with whose supposed to be able to figure out what it is.
Loyalty is a great motivator. I make sure to have everybody’s back. They’ll have mine in return.
Never show fear. People ae filled with hidden dread and anxiety that they’ll be loathe to address, or display in any way. You have to relieve them of these concerns by taking responsibility for risk, and diminish their impact.
The hardest part is getting the right people in the first place. The best people don’t need much leadership.
Exactly this. I do not mainly lead by example nor do I walk around barking orders. I hire mostly good people that don’t need to be micromanaged in anyway. They take their own talents and add them to the business. I trust them to do their job and they trust me to be fair, not listen to gossip and always give them the benefit of the doubt.
It has been the ideal recipe for years.