By Wayne Mates

You think you are a great boss and run a great company?  Your company is running well, making a profit, you and your company receive recognition, and staff loves you.  Mostly, you may be doing a great job and are a terrific boss.  But, it only takes a few missteps and you and your company may no longer be successful.  Let’s look at a few scenarios where you, as the emperor, wear no clothes.

• Failure to Listen – Let’s see.  You are the boss. As such, you have access to much more information than the people that work alongside you in your company.  That knowledge also applies to vendors and contractors you use.  You ignore the advice colleagues give you concerning their work, the market or things they observe.  What could they possibly know that would benefit your company?  After all you wouldn’t be the boss and they wouldn’t be the workers if they had any real knowledge.

What makes this situation even worse are those companies that pay lip service to what their employees think.  They have feedback surveys where they ask for  your opinion.  Or, they have internal focus groups where problems and issues are looked at and solutions are presented.  Although you “listen”, you do as you want because, in reality, their opinion doesn’t really count.  This makes you a horrible boss.

• Lack of Good Planning – Oh yes, you have a plan.  Each year you project revenue and expenses for the upcoming year.  You assume your revenue will grow a certain amount and in order to increase it, you need to spend more money than you did in the previous year.  Maybe you put more money into marketing or hire more people to sell more.  But, something happens and by the end of the third quarter, you realize your plan has no basis in reality or has been built using wrong assumptions.  So, you cut staff, cut every expense possible (except for your bonus) so you can meet your annual numbers.  If you do this consistently, this makes you a horrible boss.
• Lack of a Plan B – What if things are not going the way you want them to?  What are you going to do when things aren’t working the way you want?  Do you have a plan to move quickly into new markets or hunker down to weather a storm?  When sales are languishing, do you beat up on the sales staff, blame your marketing people or do you have a plan to kick up your sales?  Always have a plan B to deal with the crises you will face each year.  And even if you can’t foresee everything, have contingency plans always ready to implement.  If you don’t, you are a horrible boss.
• Employees are a Resource – You view your workforce as a number or a number of numbers to be increased or decreased as market conditions warrant without regard for the human side of people.  Just as we have capital resources, assets and liabilities, we also have human resources.  Of course, you speak in terms of the contributions staff make and the hard work they do, but you are really only paying lip service.  You are more concerned with how they perform, how much they are paid and the cost to your company.  If you find yourself going through cycles of hiring and firing dependent on market conditions, you are a poor planner.  Instead of hiring someone, consider using independent contractors for a fixed period of time.  And, when market conditions change, do not renew the contractors.  This will help keep your staff engaged. If you look at employees as a resource, instead of people, you are a horrible boss.

Periodically, you will be faced with some of these situations during the course of guiding your business.  Recognizing when you are potentially sliding toward one of these scenarios, stop and look at your options.  Choose work options that will keep you from being the horrible boss. Select the ones that will not only endear you to your staff as a leader, but will also lead your company to success.

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