The Best Boss
Wed., April 24, 07:26 AM
There used to be a National Boss’s Day, but I haven’t been able to find it on recent calendars. I guess Hallmark and FTD weren’t able to promote it so well. It seems to me that Secretaries Day, aka Administrative Professionals Day, is a good time to reflect on the best boss I ever worked for.
Actually, I was most fortunate. Some people never get to work for a really good supervisor. To me, it happened twice. They were so different from each other that I had to think about what they had in common, besides the fact that I liked them. Before I was married, I worked for an editor, a single man older than I; we worked for a large corporation centered in Manhattan. Fifteen years later, when I was married with a family, my boss was younger than I, married with kids, a foreigner; we worked for small companies in the New Haven area. What made them both such great bosses?
They were both very smart, and both taught me a great deal. One thing I have learned – the hard way – is that you can recognize really smart people by their willingness to teach you. People who don’t know as much won’t tell you anything except what they need you to know – very grudgingly. Good computer people are always glad to help. I still remember how Boss No. 2 sat down and explained the difference between the way a computer sorts dates and the way it perceives plain numbers.
They respected me as a person and showed appreciation for what I contributed. It was expected that I would have good secretarial skills, but I have an extensive memory for detail. Other bosses lied to me; maybe it was only mild fibs, but they were forgetting that I would remember. In addition, good bosses know how to handle errors. They may express their displeasure – even loudly – but then it’s over. Another guy I worked for kept going over old errors even when they weren’t mine! (That one had a habit of trying to make his female employees cry; it burned him up that I never shed a tear.)
Each of these guys had a great sense of humor, including the ability to laugh at themselves. That ability suggests a sense of security, in the same way as their readiness to share knowledge. A strong supervisor helps to make an employee feel safe; you can’t take a chance if you don’t feel innately safe.
Along with what they knew, they respected what I knew. Not only were they willing to teach me, they were happy to learn from me. We worked together toward a common goal, and I think that part of being a good boss is persuading your employees to embrace your objectives. I always look to the purpose of the group to guide the way I work; I’ve done it for so long that I don’t know whether I learned it from these people. Maybe my sense of “the right way” just helped me appreciate them more.
The older of these two men passed away long ago. The younger is now on the other side of the world. In other words, there is no chance I will ever work for them again. Though I’ve enjoyed working with many others over the years, these two still shine as The Best.
