Be your best self, even when others around you are not. (pic depiction)
Ravi Speaks:
Updated on 11.02.2023
In a setup where the boss is slightly less competent than his subordinate, he has got to depend on his subordinate for getting through the different jobs successfully. It is not a one-time thing. The repeated dependence of the boss on his reporting subordinates proves one point for sure over time: “his incompetency levels.”
Such bosses would always have this inferiority complex brewing in their minds toward their competent staff. In reality, one senior executive should feel himself lucky to have competent people reporting to him. Ideally, in such a situation, he should act like a leader and always show humility towards such a staff of competence. He should look after such people and try to provide them with as many opportunities to advance in their field as possible.
Ideally speaking:
Ideally, such bosses should thank them. Respect them. Give them room for growth. Recognize them for their good work and ideas. Remind yourself that management and leadership are about how you do it, not just what you do. Be firm with them and curb their rude behavior. Ask for more than you have now. Make sure you understand the business context in which they belong. We provide training to help you develop your skills. Don’t promote before you’re ready, and don’t hold back for your benefit.
Unfortunately, if the boss is not competent enough to deal with the situation as mentioned above, then the only thing that happens in such organizations is the loss of respect for the man holding control. Again, one very important current relationship between the boss and his competent subordinate, of course, results from insecurity in the boss’s mind and dissatisfaction in the subordinate. If the boss is not changed, this current will continue to brew, resulting in open neglect and disrupted office discipline.
If the Boss was smarter:
Look at the other side of the coin. If the boss was smarter than ideally, a capable manager must be able to understand each team member’s unique strengths and weaknesses and tactically design their work so that the strengths are capitalized while the weaknesses are minimized (or made irrelevant). The boss should be smart enough to figure out what they need (from life, from this job, from this company) and figure out how they can work together to move forward and help in any difficult situation.
Even Clever Staff want to be challenged:
However, it depends on the situation. Clever staff often want to be challenged whenever it comes to paying special attention. It has received little attention, but it is certainly considered unique. In large organizations, smart employees find it difficult to accept the rate of change that we want to train to allow for extra curves of relaxation while we want to get things done and live that way. I often feel it! Even if “reasonable enough” is ideal enough, smart staff often need to improve a ton. Time and expertise can be wasted trying to complete the least practical and unimportant things to perfection. Intelligent people may want to expose themselves even if it does not benefit them or their mission.
Consider the following scenario: the boss is unaware of the actual operation of the segment she is in charge of, and the subordinate has been doing his or her best to keep his or her boss’s image intact.
Mrs. Gupta (Boss) and Mr. Ashok, her sub-ordinate:
Soon after Ashok became a marketing and business development manager at a financial services company, he got a new boss—he would call her Mrs. Gupta. She moved to marketing from HR and had no background in the function. Ashok had to cover a lot of her work. “Even though she heads the marketing unit, I come up with the strategy to grow the business and cut costs,” he says. He admits it is sometimes frustrating, especially when she makes decisions that go against what he considers to be the best based on his expertise. He does everything he can to support her and make her look good. “Humility is the way to go,” he says. “I offer assistance when she is having difficulty with her work or ideas.” And when he proposes ideas to senior management, he often praises Mrs. Gupta. At least they say they worked together. Knowing what Ashok is doing for her, she returns the favor by saying good things about her boss. This collaborative, not combative, approach worked for Ashok. He is valued by his boss’s boss and has a significant responsibility at the company, even if he does not have the title of marketing manager. Also, he has seen no other good options. “If you’re in a fight with your boss and the company values them more than you, you risk being fired,” he explains. “She has been in the company for over 10 years, and I’ve only been here for eight months.” “After all, she’s my boss,” he says.
In the above case study, Ashok must always follow the following three actions:
Help your boss do her job. Think of yourself as an elder.
Find something you truly admire about her.
Find other mentors to help you learn and grow.
But, Ashok should also try his best not to have the following actions for his incompetent boss:
Assume you are more qualified than your boss. She may have skills you don’t have.
Try to take over her job. Usually, the boss wins.
Cover up serious mistakes or long-standing incompetence.
Ideal Fresher’s aspirations:
What follows are the very simple feelings and apprehensions that a fresher normally has at the time of his career initiation: He wants to work with a great boss you admire and have a lot to learn from. But what if your boss doesn’t do his job well? What if you were more competent or had more skills? Need to make a fuss or bow your head? How can you get what you want without looking bad to your boss?
A fresher enters the corporate world with very high ambitions and aspirations. But, as fate would have it, he is assigned an incompetent boss, and all of his ambitions are dashed. Unfortunately, under such conditions, his being nurtured into an efficient and smarter worker takes a big toll.
Just a brief recap of my tenure:
When I was an RM in my earlier days, I had a very ambitious boss who was equally competent. However, he had a comparatively low cadre boss on him in the capacity of SM. I could also feel, in my lower capacity as RM, that he had an enormous challenge in carrying out his instructions, which were not in line with his operational ways and thinking status. He had reached a point where he could not tolerate the stupidity of his boss any longer. Those were the times when sycophancy was the essential qualifying criteria for the bigger jumps in one’s career, and it was only later, when professionalism replaced sycophancy as a matter of logic because of systems in place in corporate functioning, that it was replaced as a matter of logic.
Later, my boss had to leave the organization, and his boss, who was SM, continued even more strongly for some time. My boss joined another organization and proved himself to be the smarter worker there in his career. Proving that your caliber pays you, even if you have to put in a consistent effort to do so,
When I think back, I was a newcomer to Delhi in the 1990s, and nearly eighty percent of the field staff were older than me. What I found was that slowly and steadily, during my tenure of sixteen years itself, I reached a respectable position in my career as well. I also had managers and bosses who were annoying and reflected incompetence, but somehow adaptability and perseverance helped me sail through.
Conclusion:
Finally, I’d like to state that everyone who enters the fray must deal with such situations. But it all depends on his level of adaptability, maturity, and smartness and how he continues his career journey without really expressing any aggression or annoyance—which might have adverse effects on his career path. The genuine leaders who also rise from the bottom and face all such stuff are really the great people who always have the mission of creating the best and smartest people for the responsible positions to be held, and for that, they toil hard in all ways.
“True leaders understand that leadership is not about them but about those they serve. It is not about exalting themselves, but about lifting others.” ~Sherri L. Dew