The Dangers of a Harried Boss

The always insightful Wally Bock made a great comment in response to my last post, where I asked about the conditions under which performance evaluations actually seemed to work.  Wally, drawing on his research on effective versus ineffective supervisors, reported (in part):

The result was that when time came for the official, on-the-company-form, performance review, their sessions were very different from their less-effective peers. Top performing supervisors took more than three times as long for the session.

Wally's comment got me thinking because, as I thought about the difference between good and bad bosses, it made me realize that -- although good bosses are concerned about using their time well, and especially, making sure not to waste their people's time -- that they tend to think and act as if it is more important to do things as well as possible than to do things as quickly as possible.  Indeed, some of the work bosses I can think of always seemed to be focused on finishing whatever they are doing at the moment so they can get on to the next thing.  The result, unfortunately, is that they spend their days rushing around, doing one thing after another badly. 

Comments

[Wally Bock]

Thanks for the kind words, Bob. I think you're right that the good ones are more concerned with quality that with speed. But I think there's another thing they do that dovetails with the quality concern. I never actually timed this, but it seems to me that good bosses devote a far greater portion of their time to people issues. They judge those to be high leverage activities.

I had the privilege of seeing Oakland Chief of Police George Hart up close. He remains one of the most effective leaders I've ever seen. Chief Hart had four things the thought were strategic for him.

One was to handle the political world so that, as far as possible, the politics of the city did not interfere with good police work. The other three were all people issues. He set standards for and paid attention to recruiting, training, and promotions/assignments.

[webmaster]

Congratulation!

Dear blogger, our legitimate resume writing service is happy to inform you that your blog is in TOP 3 best blogs about career and job in the Internet - http://www.resumesplanet.com/top20blogs.php. Welcome at our Top 20 Most Influential and Popular Career Blogs from all over the world.