“Personality traits of a good boss” has always been a debatable topic. This has been something that I have discussed several times with many people during my career since the time that I was a new kid on the block till now, when I hold a responsible position. Here is my “personal opinion” of the qualities that I have found in some of my favourite bosses, which also includes my idol – my father.
During my last assignment at Google where I was leading the Content Partnerships for India and was working on the official launch of YouTube in India, I realized that my reporting manager did not ever get into micromanaging his team. This was completely in line with the hiring philosophy at Google that focused on spending time to hire people whom you consider smart and then trust them to do their job. This also made me believe that people do not purposely make mistakes. If you go back to introspect on decisions that went wrong, in most cases you would find that you would have probably taken the same decision that they took under the circumstances at that time.
Something that I learnt during the time I was assisting my wife in her start up, I realized that young professionals like to be challenged at their work. You could push them, but you must also know when to back off to get the best out of them. I remember the time when we were working against stringent timelines that we had set for ourselves and I was pushing my team, I was advised by one of my advisors to rather share with them the objective of why it was important for us to meet the timelines and then back off. This worked and the team ensured that we delivered the results not only within the time, but also with the desired quality.
In my most recent assignment, I was faced with challenges within my first few days of joining, with some legacy issues. I learnt that your team members are as important as your clients if not more. Saying “Thank you” and “sorry” could do miracles. A team which I felt was complacent and not used to working beyond hours started doing their extra bit to help me meet some unreasonable requests of a client which saved us from embarrassment. At the end of the day, we deal with people, in any role and for anything. Showing respect is the least that we can do.
Being fair is the most important trait of a good supervisor. I once read that people who play favourites have priorities that may not be understandable by all. This raises concerns among the rest of the team and creates a divide among the team members which ultimately reflects on the company’s performance. While I say fairness is important, there may be situations where you may need to make exceptions for certain humane reasons. These will be well supported by all other team members.
Trust is another factor. After working with some of the American organizations, both large as well as start ups, I learnt a beautiful thing from my senior colleagues. They trusted each employee fully till that person broke the trust. On the contrary in few of the other organizations I term “conservative”, I find this trust missing. These companies would frame policies assuming that people will misuse them.
Another learning from my latest assignment is that it was important to have fun. People work not just for money but to learn new things, meeting people, enhancing their skill sets etc. Most people in India spend a large part of their day at work which makes it imperative to have an environment where having fun is not looked at as a “non-serious behaviour”. I realized it when someone actually pointed out that my predecessors used to share their time with the team playing table tennis or going out on the weekends and how that created a bond that I realized my team saw as a void. The moment I started spending time with my team playing ping pong or just sitting and sharing a cup of tea, made me a part of them instantaneously. I thank them for providing me this space to learn something so important.
Rewarding people for their hard work is an important thing for any manager to do. People love to be recognized for the efforts that they have put in for the company’s success. As I mentioned earlier, money is not the only thing that people are here for. They need to feel satisfied that they have contributed to the success of the business.
JRD Tata during his farewell speech from Air India said “People come and go, companies remain”. This brings up another very important learning which is that we as bosses or supervisors must never think that we are indispensable. I have worked in some critical roles earlier, but nothing in those organizations ever changed after I moved on to my newer assignments. It is so important to be grounded.
As a boss / supervisor, it is your duty to create a team that you can be proud of. Another thing that I learnt during my stint at Google is that the only one time that you can say that you are the best is when you are the only one. Your each hire has to be better than yourself. As a boss, it is your role to sell them the goal and give them the direction. You are there to make profit and you hire people because you know that you cannot do it alone.
When you hire the best, then you give them the freedom to perform. Like you, your team members also have their experiences and an opinion. Listen to them and you may be surprised that at times they may come up with a better point of view. This may not be true for all your employees, some of your team members may be fresh into work and there it becomes your responsibility to mentor them and teach them the skills that helps them to help you.
Never play one person against the other. As a good boss, you have to be above petty office politics. Credit snatching does not work and if you are confident of your team, there should be no reason to feel threatened when your team suggests something better than you, in fact that should make you proud that you hired the right person. You must make such people feel valued. In the early days of my career, I learnt from Mr. Siddharth Ray (the founder of Data Access, a start up which worked as a partner of PCCW of Hong Kong) that your employees can go ahead and add so much more value to the business if you make them feel empowered, respected and valued.
As a boss, you must inspire. One of my favourite bosses, Mr. Rajesh Sawhney, then COO of Indiatimes who currently is the President of Reliance Entertainment, always led by example. He would set achievable goals and helped us win business. The time that he would spend with us sharing with us our strengths and helping us overcome our weaknesses helped me reach where I am today.
I thank all the people who have generously spent time in teaching me the values which has helped me make friends in the industry who trust me.
