L.E.T.S. Lead by Anderson Robert

Author:Anderson, Robert
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Leadership, Team Work, Success
Publisher: Freiling Publishing
Published: 2022-03-01T00:00:00+00:00

7

Learning from Challenges and Bad Bosses

“A good leader is a person who takes a little more than his share of the blame and a little less than his share of the credit.” —John Maxwell

I have a lot to cover in this chapter. You should know and expect that you will eventually be challenged as a boss by your employees. Yep, challenged! This can be anything from refusing to implement your directions to contradicting your ideas to full-on confrontation. It does not matter how good a leader you are.

Don’t get mad. Don’t freak out. It is a part of being a leader of people. They challenge you out of jealousy, disagreement, territory—a variety of things. It could be none of the above. One thing is certain: it will happen. Different types of challenges, good and bad, will come with the territory of being a boss or leader; it just happens.

In every leadership position I have held, I have been challenged by a team member at least once. It usually happens within your first six months to a year of being promoted or moving to another leadership position.

I personally don’t think it is always driven by malice. Sometimes all it takes is change. Change and everything associated with change can come hard to people, especially in the government. Private sector culture is generally more tolerant of change—at least from my experience. Regardless, change is hard.

So when you change jobs or leadership positions, look for signs that your people may be stressed or threatened by the change in leadership. Don’t let it catch you off guard. Some of the signs may be subtle, e.g., they’re late on project deadlines; late for meetings (that is a big one); or interjecting negative remarks during meetings. It could be almost anything.

Leadership Moment

When I first retired from the government and went out into the private sector. I was hired to grow an already existing cyber security practice in a large consulting company.

The practice had been in operation for well over seven years. It was small, only seven or eight people. Modest revenue numbers but led by a great man that had established loyalty and strength among his team.

Joe had founded the team and hand-picked all of the employees that were currently working for him when I arrived at the company. Joe was one of the people who interviewed me, and he wanted me to transition into his managing director job to run the practice when he transitioned out of the company. Joe had a terminal illness and he and his family were starting to make plans for his transition out of the private sector to spend more time with his loved ones.

My mandate from the CEO was to come in and transition the practice to a large-scale, high-revenue business that could grow and eventually be sold. Wow, big difference. A lot of change. Crazy amount of change! Think people were nervous or wondering who this new guy was and what he was going to do? Yep, all day long.

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