I once had a boss. A great guy, always good with a joke, laid back, easy going. Never had any issues if you needed to leave a little early or came in a little late; type of boss everyone would love to have.
There was only one problem. The guy was terrible at his job.
He did not know how to manage people; how to get them to do things they did not want to do or to motivate them to go the extra mile for the team. He would set the goals, explain what was needed, and cheerlead in our team meetings. We always knew what the goal was and were fully on board. Everyone always agreed with the goals and wanted to see them reached.
But he always failed to follow through. He seemed to not know how to actually get to the goals, how to ensure the goals were being reached or to present a realistic plan on how to get there. When I would ask him which job was a priority to realizing the overall goals, he would always promise to “get back to me as soon as that was worked out.” As a result, our productivity suffered, deadlines were missed, things didn’t get done and the goals were seldom reached.
It wasn’t long before the higher ups began to notice and start asking questions. My boss always had an answer; some thing or someone was to blame.
When too many projections were missed, the questions started becoming criticisms. My boss had a reply to that as well; politics were ruining our company; hatchet men were everywhere.
When he was eventually fired or “chose to seek opportunities in a new field”, my boss had a last meeting with our team to say goodbye. In that last meeting he had all the answers and explanations as to what went wrong and why he was leaving. In short; he was being pushed out because the “big boys” did not like a manager who cared more about his people than money. It was all about money, screw the person. Politics and unreasonable demands; someone else caused the problems and something else prevented anything from being done about it and he was the fall guy because he didn’t have the connections of some of the ass-kissers in the company.
His replacement wasn’t a bad person. He was qualified for the job and worked well with the team. He wasn’t funny and never told jokes and our team meetings became boring as hell. But we were productive and work got done. At times I missed my old boss, especially when I wanted to leave a little early, but mostly, I preferred not having to hear the complaints as to why things weren’t going the way they were supposed to be going.
I thought of my boss as I have read the latest diaries and comments about the New York Daily news interviews with both Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton and the subsequent endorsement of Clinton by the paper. Bernie’s supporters have a number of excuses; from accusations that the interview was an “ambush” to a billionaire protecting his assets by endorsing Clinton to outright denial that the interview anything but a stunning failure. The tone of the excuses is so familiar.
What I learned from my experience with my “great” boss was simple; if you have to resort to blaming others to explain why something you were in charge of failed; you are in the wrong job.
That is true of managers and Presidents.
It is also true of candidates.