Incomplete Guide to Being a Boss

Building any company from ground zero to a well performing team of tens of people is a long and rocky road to walk. Many of the the observations and advices below come from years of experience in running an IT company, but apply to most other sectors and companies. They are pretty universal, although this list is definitely neither complete nor ultimately and always true. Nevetheless I hope you will find some of the hints useful when avoiding traps and there’s plenty of them down the road.

Managing a growing team takes talent, skill, experience and a whole lot of hard work. It requires empathy, trust, patience and an open mind. You will have to make many judgement calls and choices. You will have to make and take decisions, some of them very difficult.

Good to be the king

Being a boss might sound great at first. You have the power to set things according to your will and make final decisions. The difficult part about all those decisions is that you have to be right, at least most of the time. Knowledge, experience and mental constitution result in understanding your role and goals and choosing right paths at crossroads.

Not making a decision is also a decision. Things will sort out, eventually, but might not land where you wanted them. A non-decision should always be a conscious choice. You might not be able to undo it with any other decision.

Keep calm and temper, temper

Everybody has the right to have a bad day. Except you. It doesn’t matter if you’re in a bad mood, haven’t had enough sleep, there’s too much on your plate or you’re just tired, stressed out and nervous.
Your mood influences your team very fast so you don’t get to be in a bad one. Your job is to be all fine.

If you burst into the office all angry or stressed out — your team will feel it. Laugh is contagious, but so is anger, fear, anxiety and uncertainity. Fear spreads faster than joy and tends to stay much longer.

If you’re in charge — don’t share too much of your problems or doubts with your team. They are not your personal best friend and definitely not your shrink. While your people might really care for you, you are there to help solve their problems but it doesn’t work the other way around. It doesn’t mean you need an emotional bubble around you, but it also doesn’t mean you should spit it all out.

What’s your job

Your team is there to help you do the entire, big job. This is what teams are for. They will make mistakes, misunderstand and err. People do that sometimes. Your job is to help them push harder, improve and make most of them as individuals and a team. But it’s not your job to do their job. Even if you could do their particular jobs better and faster, you won’t do all of them at once. Otherwise you wouldn’t need a team.

Lead your team, guide it and accept the fact that they will suffer failures. They will. It’s a your job to help them get up, dust off, learn and — eventually — surpass your skills and knowledge in their areas of expertise.

You’re supposed to know your organization on every level — to a certain extent. See the big picture with it’s entire background. Obviously there will be areas you excel at, but running a company is a very complex issue. Don’t be afraid to say “I don’t know” and seek advice. This is not weakness — it’s a display of strength. Showing trust and sharing power proves you’re the right person for the task. If you don’t trust anybody you either took the wrong road in your life or require medical attention. Or both.

Top of the ladder

There are exceptions to seeking advice.
If you’re not the boss you should always have someone to share your problems with. Companies, no matter how flat the structure is, have superiors and good superiors are the right people to turn to.

If you’re the boss you don’t have a superior and some issues aren’t meant to be consulted with anyone down the ladder. No matter how open and friendly your company is and how much trust you have involved. If you’re on the top of the hill there are things you’re not supposed to discuss with anyone on your team. Failing to understand that will lead to no good, just pure harm.

All people need some attention and confirmation. That’s why very young people rarely make good leaders: they seek understanding and acceptance. Being a boss is not a popularity contest. It also means that sometimes you have nobody to turn to, you’re all alone with a couple of rough decisions to make.

Tough choices

Sometimes you will have to decide and there won’t be a good choice to make. Spend some time on careful consideration and make a good, just judgement.
Don’t pretend the problem doesn’t exist because it won’t go away and, eventually, will turn into a non-decision. Don’t go for half measures because they usually don’t work. Make a call and deal with the fact that it might be long before you feel comfortable with it.

Explain your decisions if need be, but don’t explain yourself. Don’t expect people to understand your thoughts. They are not you, they don’t know what paths your mind walks and — in most cases — can’t see the whole picture. They are not aware of most of the pieces of the puzzle. This is your job, not theirs.

These kinds of calls are rough rides that leave marks. Make sure these are bruises that heal, not deep scars. Some decisions will stay in your consciousness forever and you’ll have to live with them, no matter how cliché it might sound.

Don’t let difficult choices break you. Anyone can make easy choices — that’s what makes them easy. It’s how you make the tough ones that hurt and how you recover. Make it count.

Winston Churchill famously said that success is the ability to move from one failure to another without loss of enthusiasm.
Leading a successful team works exactly that way. Act, fail, learn, improve, fail again. Every failure, every difficult moment adds up to your experience that you use to lead your team better. After enough failures, if endured, you will feel the difference. Embrace them but aim for wins in the long run. As time goes by you will make better judgements and see things coming faster than anybody else around. This is the power of experience.