This week Aliza Sherman gets my Entrepreneurial Cojones Award for her
post on Work It, Mom, "I was the boss from hell." In this post,
Aliza--an entrepreneurial superpower in my book, whose candid take on
building a business and a personal life are inspiring--takes on a ghost
from her business past: her first business. More specifically, her
ineptitude as a manager.
Aliza uses this post to apologize for this behavior (something I dream about seeing from bosses in my past, but that's another post), and to point out the stresses in her life that made her a bad boss. The point of this post is not to excuse her behavior, but to allow other entrepreneurial women to understand how some common, and not so common, stresses can lead to bad managing. Frankly, I suspect Aliza is being somewhat hard on herself, but I appreciated this candid, useful piece.
While I don't have the same issues as Aliza did, I could relate to the fact that not all of us go into business for ourselves because we want to be great managers. Usually entrepreneurs go into business to get something done, and they realize they need others to help them do it.
In my current business I've had direct reports and then not. When I was managing I took my role very seriously, but I often felt like a bad mother being on the road and unable to work with my staff as directly as I'd like. I had a discussion with my partners about my best use, and realized that in order for me to fulfill my role in the company I would need to work cross functionally more, and manage less. I still like to catch up with those who were on my team; I feel a special connection. But I no longer oversee their work. Rather than a "mother", I'm an "older sister".
This has had a mixed effect: On the one hand, I'm freed up to manage my work. I don't have to worry about "checking in" with the team. On the other hand, as someone who craved mentoring in my career, I have less opportunity to directly affect their learning. They're doing more than fine without me, but there remains a hankering to be more impactful there. It's a feeling for me similar to being childless. I know it's a choice, not a condemnation, but I also ask myself, is this how it is because I would be a bad mother?
Ten years ago, I was running my first company, and I was in a bad place in my life despite being in an excellent place with my company, at least on the surface. Although I still don’t have a full picture of how my employees at the time saw me, I get bits and pieces as I reconnect with some of them over time, and the picture is not pretty.
Some suitable words to describe me as a boss at that time would be:
* impatient
* paranoid
* angry
* frustrated
* bitchy
* demanding
* irrational
* emotional
* disempowering
* unpredictable
* insensitive
Aliza uses this post to apologize for this behavior (something I dream about seeing from bosses in my past, but that's another post), and to point out the stresses in her life that made her a bad boss. The point of this post is not to excuse her behavior, but to allow other entrepreneurial women to understand how some common, and not so common, stresses can lead to bad managing. Frankly, I suspect Aliza is being somewhat hard on herself, but I appreciated this candid, useful piece.
While I don't have the same issues as Aliza did, I could relate to the fact that not all of us go into business for ourselves because we want to be great managers. Usually entrepreneurs go into business to get something done, and they realize they need others to help them do it.
Still, as Aliza says, if you are going to hire people, you must address how you will manage them:
"Being a boss, like it or not, is kind of like being a parent. If you can’t do your absolute best when managing other people, just don’t do it. Find another job. Put someone else in charge. Because bosses can have such deep impacts on the people in their employ, and no one should take that responsibility lightly."
In my current business I've had direct reports and then not. When I was managing I took my role very seriously, but I often felt like a bad mother being on the road and unable to work with my staff as directly as I'd like. I had a discussion with my partners about my best use, and realized that in order for me to fulfill my role in the company I would need to work cross functionally more, and manage less. I still like to catch up with those who were on my team; I feel a special connection. But I no longer oversee their work. Rather than a "mother", I'm an "older sister".
This has had a mixed effect: On the one hand, I'm freed up to manage my work. I don't have to worry about "checking in" with the team. On the other hand, as someone who craved mentoring in my career, I have less opportunity to directly affect their learning. They're doing more than fine without me, but there remains a hankering to be more impactful there. It's a feeling for me similar to being childless. I know it's a choice, not a condemnation, but I also ask myself, is this how it is because I would be a bad mother?
