One of the chapters in my forthcoming book Good Boss, Bad Boss is called "Serve as a Human Shield" and it argues -- and shows how -- the best bosses protect their people from idiocy of all kinds, from overly nosy executives and visitors, to moronic procedures, to meetings that run too long or never should have been held in the first place, and a host of other intrusions, distractions, and needless sources of friction that make it harder to do their work and to sustain good mental health. I have a Harvard Business Review article coming out in fall that digs into this question, and recently, at HBR.org, I posted the 5th point on my list of 12 Things Good Bosses Believe. It is called: Do You Have Their Backs? Or Just Your Own? It is currently #1 on HBR's "most read" list. Here is a taste:
Robert Townsend might be the poster child for the kind of boss that provides tangible cover to his team. He tends to be known at this point for having written the most outrageous management book ever published, Up the Organization. It's a collection of 150 or so ruminations on business life that are delightful, irreverent, and sometimes politically incorrect — all penned in an era before blogs were invented and such things were called short essays. But Townsend gleaned his insights from his succession of management jobs, notably as CEO of Avis Rent-a-car, where he was a widely loved wildman. In contrast to the usual hollow rhetoric, he never left any doubt that the people of his organizations came first, and that his job as a boss was to serve as defender and warrior on their behalf. Once, for example, he fought off a request from a powerful Avis board member, National Broadcasting Company founder David Sarnoff (aka "The General"), that would have been a time sink for his staff. Sarnoff couldn't believe there was no accurate tally of all the cars that Avis owned, and demanded that one be produced — a task that would have taken weeks. In that kind of situation, any of us can imagine rolling our eyes, but in a choose-your-battles world, how many of us would have refused? Townsend did, because he knew his people had more important work to do. "If I don't need it to run the company," he told Sarnoff, "you sure as hell don't need that information as an outside director."
Even more telling, for me, was the time Townsend was stopped in the hall by his own boss. This was earlier in his career, at American Express, and the firm's Chairman wanted to express his pleasure with a "good bond swap" by Townsend's group. Again, how would most people use that face time? In Townsend's case, it wasn't to take credit and jockey for his next promotion. He replied that he didn't even know about the swap, and complained colorfully about how hard it was to get resources and better pay for the undervalued people doing such magnificent work. He chose to cover their backs, in other words, rather than climb over them.
This topic of bosses as "human shields" is one I have discussed on my personal blog a bit (see here and here), but I dig into in much more detail at HBR.org than in the past. Let me know what you think, either here or there, as I am always interested in the means that good bosses use to shield their people so they can do good work and do it with dignity.
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