OP, you swear a lot in your typing communications. Don't know if that's just for us but never swear in business. Just don't.
And let your team believe you would walk over coals for them, they are your team and their success is your success, literally and figuratively .
Also let them believe if the hammer needs to come down, it will happen.
Leadership has evolved immensely , things like Art of War and military based texts while an interesting fundimental really aren't fitting anymore, the really talented people are not afraid of losing a job, and you cant shoot the dumb ones. Understanding while people work for you they also work with you.
OP, you swear a lot in your typing communications. Don't know if that's just for us but never swear in business. Just don't.
And let your team believe you would walk over coals for them, they are your team and their success is your success, literally and figuratively .
Also let them believe if the hammer needs to come down, it will happen.
My team has no issues w/ my pirate mouth. I've been told it's "refreshing", "open", and "builds trust." I act like myself with nothing to hide; I find this empowering and it terrifies some of the insecure upper management folk*, giving me negotiation leeway (I guess they're hiding behind masks?)
And like you said, I'm not afraid to lose my job either. I can find a job very fast.
EDIT: *Should add that every workplace I've been to knows about my history of family abuse. I put it out in the open to send two messages:
My team has no issues w/ my pirate mouth. I've been told it's "refreshing", "open", and "builds trust." I act like myself with nothing to hide; I find this empowering and it terrifies some of the insecure upper management folk, giving me negotiation leeway (I guess they're hiding behind masks?)
And like you said, I'm not afraid to lose my job either. I can find a job very fast.
In general, I find that people often swear when they do not have more eloquent ways of presenting their opinion. I doubt that is the case with you.
The way I see it is it offends some people and doesnt help me present my point so I leave it out of any business conversations. Makes my life easier as I do not have to tailor my correspondence based on my audience. I occasionally end up in meetings with people I have never met before and have no idea what they expect but quickly figure out they can crush my future in the industry. Offend the wrong person once and it can have lasting repercussions.
We think alike!
Its the first thing that came to mind as soon as I read the thread title, lol.
Someone I follow online once stated: 'You get hired for function, but fired for fit'
Over the years I've come to learn that no matter how competent or productive you may be, at the end of the day if you don't get along well with your peers + management, the clock is ticking.
That applies to corporate culture however.
I'm of the mindset that in order to be truly 'wealthy', you would have to have both time and money at your disposal.
I believe 'rich' people trade time for money.
So yes, one could rise up the ranks and earn a lot more dough, but there are a lot of people eyeing your position up there and the expectation/deliverables required of you can be a stress generator like no other.
My team has no issues w/ my pirate mouth. I've been told it's "refreshing", "open", and "builds trust." I act like myself with nothing to hide; I find this empowering and it terrifies some of the insecure upper management folk*, giving me negotiation leeway (I guess they're hiding behind masks?)
...
You're trying to set a standard, generally a high one. If you were in a mine or logging camp this may be different, in a software lab you don't make swearing part of your every day vocabulary.
For me, cuss words are a leadership tool. When I use them, my folks go wide eyed -- they know the point I'm making is serious and it's time time to shut up and listen. That's won't work if you toss around cuss words day in day out.
I have the same rule for tossing monitors and trash cans across the room.
For me, cuss words are a leadership tool. When I use them, my folks go wide eyed -- they know the point I'm making is serious and it's time time to shut up and listen. That's won't work if you toss around cuss words day in day out.
If I need to get their attention I just stop being a clown, stop swearing, and let "are you ******* idiots?" bleed out of my eyes. Everybody shuts up after, even upper management lol
I admit I am different in this regard. I don't care how someone gets their work done. Just get it done on time (or give me a reasonable heads up if **** is hitting the fan), pass tests, and peer reviews. That's the only standard.
There are two colleagues who repeatedly ask me for guidance because they're afraid of not hitting that standard (and they should be, they're the weakest on the team but no one told them that.)
If I need to get their attention I just stop being a clown, stop swearing, and let "are you ******* idiots?" bleed out of my eyes. Everybody shuts up after, even upper management lol
There are two colleagues who repeatedly ask me for guidance because they're afraid of not hitting that standard (and they should be, they're the weakest on the team but no one told them that.)
If it was me i would sooner be aware of what is not going to happen, as have it hit the fan after the fact. Makes you look weak as well.
So the 2 folks reaching for help in my eyes is the proper thing to do, easy to knock people down, but make the choice to build people up is another job
I joined a fairly big company awhile back that had just started an employee survey process
reason for this was they had a few systemic problems badly impacting company success:
safety, absenteeism, planning failures, missing deadlines...things that can sink a Co if not corrected
dept heads had no idea what to do, brass brought it a consulting company
first thing they did was asked for copies of the annual reviews
guess what, everyone was awesome
conclusion: your supervisors are the problem, pack of lyers
so they conducted an anonymous employee satisfaction survey
made a big show of wanting to understand employees concerns and make changes
this was BS, they were data collecting to see the ratio of ****-birds to engaged workers
turned out we were typical of most companies: 20% of workforce was disgruntled and not engaged
Supervisors were gathered together to review the results and given an ultimatum:
identify the ****-birds on your crew and work with HR to get rid of them
or you will go
the graphical summary was a bell curve of the workers
at the low end were the 20% that needed to go
60% in the center that were good, dependable employees there for a pay cheque
20% on the right that were actively engaged in the success of the Co - future leaders
I'm admittedly iffy about one of them, but I'll rewrite their code and document why (on the actual code) if I have to. Someone else will peer review my code after as well so everyone knows lol
I joined a fairly big company awhile back that had just started an employee survey process
reason for this was they had a few systemic problems badly impacting company success:
safety, absenteeism, planning failures, missing deadlines...things that can sink a Co if not corrected
dept heads had no idea what to do, brass brought it a consulting company
first thing they did was asked for copies of the annual reviews
guess what, everyone was awesome
conclusion: your supervisors are the problem, pack of lyers
so they conducted an anonymous employee satisfaction survey
made a big show of wanting to understand employees concerns and make changes
this was BS, they were data collecting to see the ratio of ****-birds to engaged workers
turned out we were typical of most companies: 20% of workforce was disgruntled and not engaged
Supervisors were gathered together to review the results and given an ultimatum:
identify the ****-birds on your crew and work with HR to get rid of them
or you will go
the graphical summary was a bell curve of the workers
at the low end were the 20% that needed to go
60% in the center that were good, dependable employees there for a pay cheque
20% on the right that were actively engaged in the success of the Co - future leaders
I admit I am different in this regard. I don't care how someone gets their work done. Just get it done on time (or give me a reasonable heads up if **** is hitting the fan), pass tests, and peer reviews. That's the only standard.
There are two colleagues who repeatedly ask me for guidance because they're afraid of not hitting that standard (and they should be, they're the weakest on the team but no one told them that.)
It sounds like you might be a boss - that's different than being a leader.
A boss is usually a SME, they are like the sergeants in the army. They keeps staff in line, inside the boundaries, on time, gets into the details of the work, and within the frameworks of work standards and compliance. They are behind the issues (your staff coming to you for guidance).
A leader is different they lead a team to a goal. They are not necessarily and often not SME's - their strength is leadership, they could lead software, hardware, logistics... the SME part isn't that important. In tech businesses, particularly mid sized ones, staff are usually educated smart cookies but woefully devoid of leadership training and capability - they have a hard time relating to leaders who are not SMEs. As they move to lead roles they become a boss and have to deal with the next level who are typically leaders, they still have a hard time. Many find it hard to deal with higher levels of management because they can't grasp leading without the SME part SME part.
Great leaders are consistently ahead the issues -they bring guidance to staff before staff see the need to approach them for guidance.
It sounds like you might be a boss - that's different than being a leader.
A boss is usually a SME, they are like the sergeants in the army. They keeps staff in line, inside the boundaries, on time, gets into the details of the work, and within the frameworks of work standards and compliance. They are behind the issues (your staff coming to you for guidance).
A leader is different they lead a team to a goal. They are not necessarily and often not SME's - their strength is leadership, they could lead software, hardware, logistics... the SME part isn't that important. In tech businesses, particularly mid sized ones, staff are usually educated smart cookies but woefully devoid of leadership training and capability - they have a hard time relating to leaders who are not SMEs. As they move to lead roles they become a boss and have to deal with the next level who are typically leaders, they still have a hard time. Many find it hard to deal with higher levels of management because they can't grasp leading without the SME part SME part.
Great leaders are consistently ahead the issues -they bring guidance to staff before staff see the need to approach them for guidance.
Isn't this implied as boss or leader as well though? And what does SME stand for? Also, I would NEVER identify as a "boss." I am the tank. The shield. The shot caller - the guy who goes first. The guy that everyone is gonna blame if **** goes wrong (aka. get shot at by arrows.)
I got my ex-manager thrown out for what you're saying. There are many infrastructure problems that came from incompetent "leads" in the past who refused to address "elephant in the room" issues only because everyone else in the room was technically incompetent. My job is not just be a shield for the team, but to sharpen the sword of the entire company so it is ready to strike when need be; our sword is rusty as **** right now because of technical debt.
I think those ratios are not going to vary much from industry to industry
a Leader needs to have an accurate evaluation of their team members as to where they are on that curve
of course if you have poor leadership skills, you won't know
the ultimate success is to move a worker from the ****-bird category to the main body of the productive workforce
It is satisfying, but very time consuming...I think I've done it twice....can't count the number I've actively dispatched
the other focus needs to be identifying who from the 60% has the potential to move up to hotshot category
not every hotshot can be promoted to leader, so you are going to lose some over $$
nothing you can do about that, they are going to go, but if you've been grooming other workers, it's all good
OP, dont think for a minute the upper management , senior director or whatever are intimidated/ wowed/ however you want to think it. You think I'm negotiating and have an upper hand. He thinks, this prat is pretty good at what he does, I need him to go do that, then I can play golf on friday.
I know thats how they think , because i'm THAT GUY!
Your dept is a big pail of water, everybodies hand is in the pail. Pull your hand out and show me the hole in the water in the pail.
OP, dont think for a minute the upper management , senior director or whatever are intimidated/ wowed/ however you want to think it. You think I'm negotiating and have an upper hand. He thinks, this prat is pretty good at what he does, I need him to go do that, then I can play golf on friday.
I know thats how they think , because i'm THAT GUY!
Your dept is a big pail of water, everybodies hand is in the pail. Pull your hand out and show me the hole in the water in the pail.
I've seen that analogy before. I don't think it applies to every situation. Yes, a lot of companies can run that way but some companies have a leaky bucket and a few key players have their fingers plugging the holes. Lose too many plugs and you run out of water before you seal the bucket again.
There is a huge difference between a manager and a leader. A good manager is skilled at getting people to do things they don't want to do. A good leader is skilled at getting people to do things they never thought they could do.
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