FREE online courses on Building a Winning Team - Managerial Inputs in
Development - Socialise
We
are all familiar with cartoons where the boss does
his annual unbending act at the office
Christmas party, and where the naïve newcomer, having shared a few jovial
remarks with him, is dumb-founded at the frost he encounters the next time he
comes face to face with him.
It can
be very difficult for a boss to get to know his
staff really well, which requires a degree of
social contact (varying from culture to culture) but not familiarity. He has to
be seen as a human (and humane) being, having close working relationships with
his staff while retaining his aura of authority and maintaining his distance! It
is hardly surprising, therefore, that most managers, apprehensive of being taken
advantage of by the pressure of personal bonds with people they have to
supervise daily, retreat behind a wall of feigned indifference, where closeness
poses no risk to authority.
But consider the advantages of socializing:
- Affords an opportunity
to share your values and vision
- Creates a sense of
caring through getting to know each other as people
- A boss who socializes,
within bounds, gets even more loyalty/ respect
- Gets feedback/ advance
information about potentially undesirable situations which may be at nascent
stages
- Dispels rumor or gossip
about what the boss is really like
- Chances of staff
development taking place are considerably enhanced
Little staff development can
take place without close understanding between boss and staff,
through the authority vested in him, but also through his own innate qualities
of leading and willingness to be led. Men will kill for such officer-like
qualities in their boss!! As the
boss, you may review the
following points:
- get out from behind your
desk and cruise your patch
- put your people at their
ease
- let your hair down just
a bit now and then
- enter inter-departmental
competitions; they'll love you for losing with a grin. Ditto for raffle
tickets.
- join them for lunch or
coffee once in a while and have brief chats on non-work areas
We can't all be charismatic generals like
Patton, but remember that homely Gen. Omar S. Bradley, the ‘people's general,'
eclipsed him, just because this was the area where Patton's ‘weakness' nearly
resulted in a revolt in the U.S. Army Division he commanded, and led to his
having to make a public apology to his troops… and an early retirement. ‘A
medieval warrior, lost in modern times' (as Field Marshal Von Runsted of the
Reichstag described him). Abrasive genius has often
to give way to effective mediocrity in the interests of staff development and
Company goals.
QUESTION:
- How do bosses get their
work done through staff they do no know well? What are the secrets of achieving the high-wire balancing act
that allows a boss to socialize without getting too close?
- Why, if at all, is it
necessary to be sensitive to staff as people? Does ‘hobnobbing' with the men pay off handsomely for
managers? If so, how and why? Make your stand clear in unambiguous language.
