It Doesn't Take a Wizard to Build a Better Boss

My reaction was: Who's the dumb one here? If your boss is a Scarecrow, his stupidity is your opportunity. So what do you do?

As much as you can. Take on as much work and as much responsibility as you can handle. Do the work. Then do the briefing necessary to keep the boss well-informed and comfortable. And most important, do whatever it takes to make sure the boss gets all the credit for all the work you do.

What do you not do? Don't listen to your ego. Worrying about getting credit is the worst mistake you can make. If you're doing all the work -- going to the late-night sessions, developing the strategies, seeing them through to implementation -- then others both in and out of the organization will have a clear understanding of your contribution. Those who matter will know that you're the source of the ideas.

What do you get out of working for a Scarecrow? An opportunity you couldn't possibly have with a smart, high-powered, mentor of a boss: the opportunity to immerse yourself in boss-like work years before you might otherwise have the chance.

What do you give up in a situation like this? Absolutely nothing.

But if Steve DeSimone's willingness to let me do the thinking for him represents the best-case Scarecrow scenario, there is also a worst-case scenario: a stupid boss who wants to micro-manage the organization.

I have not only worked for this kind of boss, I was one. It was my first job after graduate school; I had been hired by a major manufacturer and sent to a Midwestern factory to learn the ropes, managing the night shift. When the time came to report for my first night after training, I was more than ready. I'd read the performance charts and knew I could boost productivity and do it literally overnight.

When my shift reported, I immediately began rallying the troops. I told them that I'd figured out how we could cut the amount of time it took to do an equipment change. I even jumped onto one of the forklifts to demonstrate my more efficient method. Mistake. Big mistake. Before I knew what had happened, the whole crew had walked off the factory floor and into the cafeteria. I had single-handedly triggered a wildcat strike.

At that point I did the only thing a young manager knows to do: I called home, woke up my wife, and asked her what to do. Her advice: apologize. So I went into the cafeteria and did as I'd been told. Peace was restored -- and I'd learned an important lesson about the bosses and the bossed. If I tried to act "bossly" about things I knew nothing about, I could only screw things up. The routine work was under control. If I really wanted to be the boss, I needed to find ways to add value -- otherwise, the best I could do was to get out of the way.

When the boss is both stupid and meddlesome -- as I was -- you have to find a way to teach him that lesson, politely but firmly.

"I haven't got any courage at all. I can't even scare myself ... I'm afraid there's no denying, I'm just a dandelion." -- The Cowardly Lion

II. The Cowardly Lion: Do You Have the Courage of Your Boss's Convictions?

For years, I had a boss who refused to take a stand. He wouldn't sort out the disagreements between battling subordinates. He routinely postponed decisions until they were made by default. In all those years, not once did he solve a professional problem I brought to him.

When he finally retired, I sat down to write him a letter, mostly to address my own frustrations. When I finished, I had written one long thank-you. What I realized was that at a half-dozen critical points in my career, my boss's refusal to act had forced me to act on my own behalf. And each of those points had turned out to be essential to my personal growth.

I learned from him that the boss who lacks courage -- like the boss with no brain -- can be a valuable person to work for.

Start by trying to understand what makes the Lion quiver. In other words, when you complain that your boss lacks courage, what exactly does that mean? Is the boss slow to act? Too timid?

Perhaps what the boss lacks is information, not guts. There isn't a subordinate who hasn't made a proposal to the boss, only to be told to find more data to support the recommendation. And there isn't a subordinate who doesn't consider such a request to be a sign of executive gutlessness and bureaucratic indecision. But to the boss, information is courage. The subordinate's job is to supply the passion. The boss's job is to make sure that the data supports the passion. That's not cowardice; it's competence.

Or maybe the boss simply has a different view of the world. The next time you think the boss is ducking an issue, step back and reframe the problem. Ask yourself what the boss's perspective brings into the picture that you don't see. Does the boss work on a larger canvas, introducing departments, competitors, or issues that your view excludes? Or are you framing the issue in the wrong way when you present it to the boss?