Tame Your Terrible Office Tyrant

"Set yourself apart by making human relations skills your priority". This line caught my eye when I saw it among the headline quotes going across the top of the page. During the recession, many of us hunkered down, got into a "survival mode". Also, as I noticed, management often was hard on employees, sometimes out of necessity, sometimes because of the pressure on managers themselves, and sometimes justifying bad boss behavior by "times are tough" mantra. People skills went deep into background. As the economy starts moving towards normalcy, we should try to return our workplace relations to a more normal, more humane state, and remember that being a good boss or a good coworker is also good for business.

I agree with this author. It's time to stop just holding on and get going again. Hopefully, management has learned a thing or two. If not, then employees will jump ship and go to work for a more "enlightened" management style.

Yes, different things held a lot of us back in 2008-2009. Change is upon us, though, so we need to change, too. When going is tough you don't think about development - you just fight to survive using what you already have. Now is the time to check if we are ready for the next step, and refresh that which we, under pressure, lost sight of - like human relations skills. I like that the author mentions both bosses and employees, "managing up and around". As a manager, I like to remind myself that "we are in this together", to keep from being a "terrible office tyrant". We all need that "interpersonal intelligence" to make the workplace a good place to be.

@Alice: My take from this stuff is not anti-management, I took it as building oneself up, and that may mean you have to "manage up", not just wait for the management to become nicer, or threaten to "jump the ship". You should feel that it's your ship, too, so if you're not happy with something, act to change it. As a manager myself, I might have been a "terrible office tyrant" at times, especially during the last year, but I try to correct the situation when I see it.

A.F. - I didn't say I was "anti-management". I said that I hoped management learned in 2009. After all, it was a year where greedy types were sent to prison. Was it not? I hope that real managers learned to respect the hard-working employees who pitched in to do more with less. You mentioned that you were a Terrible Office Tyrant at times but tried to correct the situation. That's what I meant by being an "enlightened" manager - one who learns from his/her mistakes and then takes action to correct those mistakes rather than to just blame employees. And I think it is always a good idea to sharpen up career skills no matter where you are on the "ladder to success".

The author is right: human relations skills along with willingness to learn - those are the skills that will serve you well throughout your entire life, through good bosses and bad bosses, so you should be improving them constantly.