{"id":960,"date":"2019-03-27T10:44:03","date_gmt":"2019-03-27T14:44:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/WorkShouldBeFun.com\/blog\/?p=960"},"modified":"2019-03-18T10:30:37","modified_gmt":"2019-03-18T14:30:37","slug":"bulldozer-bosses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/WorkShouldBeFun.com\/blog\/bulldozer-bosses\/","title":{"rendered":"Bulldozer Bosses"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Image
Image source: Pixaby.com <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In my previous post<\/a>, I shared my view on the latest scandal around college admissions – bulldozer (or lawnmower, or snowplow\u2026) parents. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This time I\u2019m going to take on the issue of bulldozer bosses. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Have you ever experienced a bulldozer boss? Have you ever been one?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is critical in the development of a child to allow them to experience failure – and to know the joy of pulling yourself out of it. Failure happens. Mistakes happen. We must develop our resilience and learn to recover. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This ability to learn from our mistakes, to deal with failure, doesn\u2019t end when we leave school. Rather, when we stop allowing any possibility of failure, we stop learning. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my experience, our greatest learning happens in the aftermath of things that go horribly wrong. I am not saying that we have to actually fail in order to learn. I am a huge fan of learning from the mistakes of others. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, I am suggesting that allowing for at least the possibility of failure, by operating in a space where we accept that failure is a possibility, we do learn more. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some bosses behave in a way that disallows any option of failure. They berate staff who make the most minor of mistakes, they fire people for making even single mistakes, etc. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My philosophy has always been that it is OK to make a mistake. Repeating them is not. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some bosses act like bulldozer parents who attempt to clear all possible roadblocks. They cannot tolerate any possibility of failure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of these bosses, in their attempts to avoid failures, become micromanagers. They not only tell their staff what to do, but exactly how to do it. And by \u201chow to do it\u201d I mean \u201cthe way I would do it.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like loading the dishwasher, there are many ways to accomplish the same objective. It really doesn\u2019t matter whether the silverware gets loaded handle up or handle down. (I know, heresy, right?) We all develop our preferences for which is the right way, but in the end, they get clean either way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next level beyond micromanaging are the bosses who step in and do the work their staff should be doing. They don\u2019t trust that their staff is capable of doing the task, so they do it themselves. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the worst of all. It sends a clear signal to the staff that they are seen as incompetent. It gives them no path to grow. It encourages them to do less, when all the time we are being surrounded by a message that we should be doing more. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we want our staff to grow in confidence and capability, we must allow room for them to make mistakes. And in doing that, we also allow room for them to do things far better than we could have done ourselves. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Step out of the bulldozer. Point the way. Set the direction. Then stand back and watch the magic happen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In my previous post, I shared my view on the latest scandal around college admissions – bulldozer (or lawnmower, or snowplow\u2026) parents. This time I\u2019m going to take on the issue of bulldozer bosses. Have you ever experienced a bulldozer boss? Have you ever been one? It is critical in the development of a child … Continue reading Bulldozer Bosses<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false},"categories":[6,47,13,52,9,12,10],"tags":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/WorkShouldBeFun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/960"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/WorkShouldBeFun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/WorkShouldBeFun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/WorkShouldBeFun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/WorkShouldBeFun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=960"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/WorkShouldBeFun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/960\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":965,"href":"https:\/\/WorkShouldBeFun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/960\/revisions\/965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/WorkShouldBeFun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/WorkShouldBeFun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/WorkShouldBeFun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}