Mon • Nov 2nd, 2009 • by Tom Nees • Comments 1
new ideas about managing and leading up
In the best-selling book Good to Great, Jim Collins says, “…to build a successful organization and team you must get the right people on the bus.” But what if the bus driver has a problem?
How many of us have been tempted to leave a job because of a bad boss? I know some who have quit, not because they didn’t like their jobs but because they couldn’t serve well with a bad boss. But quitting is not usually a good thing to do.
In his TechRepublic article, “Dealing with the boss from down below,” Wade Mitchell warns that “While quitting is probably the easiest solution it can be pretty self-destructive.”
What is an employee to do when a bad boss frustrates the will to serve well? Evidently this is not an unusual question given the number of websites dedicated to the issue. HR specialists know that job satisfaction and performance is significantly influenced by the employee/boss relationship.
After reading a couple of recent articles and an excellent new book by John Baldoni, Leading Your Boss: The Subtle Art of Managing Up, I recalled the frustrations I’ve heard recently about bad leaders.
In his book and a recent Washington Post article, “The Upside of a Bad Boss,”Baldoni suggests ways to have influence and lead for the good of an organization in spite of bad leaders. He credits ideas from Michael Useem’s book, “Leading Up: How to Lead Your Boss So You Both Win,” for his upbeat suggestions. The positive lessons learned from serving well in spite of bad bosses apply in any work environment.
“Leading up,” or “managing up” may sound like a new idea, yet most of us have done it without thinking about it, or at least thinking about it as a good thing.
For the most part, leadership flows down not up. However “leading up,” is a reminder that we are mistaken if we think that only bosses lead. There are many ways of leading and serving well from a middle or subordinate position in spite of a bad boss.
Baldoni believes we can learn to push back the right way and to challenge assumptions without challenging the individual above. He offers examples, lessons from stories of people from all walks of life who have made a difference for good in less than perfect circumstances.
Leadership coaching is intended to help bosses become good leaders. Whether leading from the top or the middle it’s important for leaders to learn how to influence their organizations for the common good. While there are limits there are always possibilities for positive change even when the boss could do better.
November 12th, 2009 at 2:00 pm
“Leading up,” or “managing up” intrigues me as a veteran inside the beltway of my denominational judicatory offices. As a “middle judicatory” staffer, I often see matters from an amphibious perspective. I have one foot in the “Dead Sea” of bureaucracy and another in the in the fast-moving river of the local church scene. In one arena, leaders either understand the volatile, dynamic setting in which they serve, and can easily make battle-field adjustments, or they unwittingly impede the flow of change so essential to even minimal relevance. In the other arena, leaders must contend with the tolerance of maintenance and stability at the expense of innovation, agility, and flexibility. Leading up is really about perspective. Perspective is shifty thing. Sometimes the elevation provides one kind of perspective, while integration provides another. Organizations that do not value both, often find themselves embracing solutions for which the original problem has changed, making those solutions less-than-useful. Leading up often provides the opportunity for perspective shift. This is especially valuable for organizations where a culture of confidence in one level of perspective has been found unwarranted and unsatisfactory, yet lacking the impetus to incorporate both strategic and tactical change.
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