Are You a Bad Boss?

Some of my favorite images of a “bad boss” come, appropriately enough, from the recent movie Horrible Bosses, which highlighted bosses engaged in all manner of strange and inappropriate behaviors. Clearly, we all have an image of a bad boss in our minds. Whether it’s from personal experience or a result of countless movies, television shows or amusing anecdotes, we’re all familiar with these yelling, temper-losing, subordinate-berating malcontents.

Although I have, at various times, wondered what actually makes a bad boss, my thoughts on the matter are probably based more on emotion than reality. But a recent blog post on the Harvard Business Review’s website—titled “Are You Sure You’re Not a Bad Boss?”—puts the question into perspective and confirms some interesting elements, some of which are exceptionally applicable to EMS. As outlined in the article, some traits of a “bad boss” include:

An inability to collaborate and be a team player. Whether we embrace it or not, EMS is a team sport with many decisions having system implications. Some of the traits that define a poor leader include hiding yourself in your office with the door shut all day and failing to develop positive relations with colleagues. The worst bosses view work as a competition and their colleagues as opponents. Clearly, we can get more done as a team, capitalizing on everyone’s strengths. One supervisor may know more about the scheduling needs and the software utilized, another may be a wiz at the CAD system and one of your assistants may be the budgeting virtuoso—a good boss, acting as team leader, manages that team and knows how to utilize all of these strengths to maximize efficiencies.

A failure to develop others. This is actually one of my managerial pet peeves and it’s unforgivable. Leaders must be concerned about helping their direct reports develop their own individual skill sets and should strive to be seen as coaches or mentors. A true leader’s primary focus should not be him or herself; rather, they need to be concerned about the long-term success of their employees and their EMS agency. This includes ensuring opportunities for in-house professional development and attendance at relevant EMS conferences is available.

Refusing to set direction. EMS agencies, like all other disciplines, need a strategic plan as well as an operational action plan if they are to move forward. This means sitting down with all levels of your agency and plotting this course—and then sticking to the plan. Weak leaders have a murky view of the future, don’t know precisely what direction to take and are unwilling to plan. The planning process, and the inclusion of personnel from all levels, gives everyone in the agency the knowledge that their opinions are integral, as well as providing a clear path forward.

Inept interpersonal skills. Understand, EMS leaders and leaders-to-be, that your interpersonal skills are one of the most important components of being an effective boss. This not only means having a vision and the ability to communicate that vision to those around you, it also means understanding how to speak to people, not being rude, not talking down or yelling at those around you, and also not playing favorites. Another area included in the “bosses and communications” category is bosses who don’t listen, don’t ask good questions, don’t reach out to others, and don’t praise or otherwise reinforce good behavior and success—don’t be that person.

Failure to improve and learn from mistakes. We all make mistakes—all of us. Speak with people you respect and they’ll confirm this to be true. They’ll also confirm that learning from these mistakes and ensuring they don’t happen again is paramount. As EMS managers, there are plenty of areas where we step into the danger zone on a regular basis, including contentious personnel issues, financial reporting/budgetary areas or compliance.

Do not let the fact that you wear a white shirt or are called “Director” make you complacent, or reach the dangerous conclusion that you’ve reached a stage in your career where development is no longer required. Reflect on your mistakes and understand what went wrong; take control of any part of the problem you can and try to figure out how you were responsible (this can include revising policies and procedures, as well as closing any loopholes that allowed things to go off track). If and when you find yourself in a similar situation again, take a moment to think about what went wrong the first time and reflect on the measures you’ve put in place since then to prevent the same mistakes from recurring.

Conclusion

One of the concluding points in the Harvard Business review blog post is also one of its most important: while any one of these flaws can be fatal enough on its own to tank a boss, they’re commonly seen in groups of three or four, as one problem often creates another. But the point here is most of the items listed above stem from things leaders don’t do—acts of omission—and even some of the most obvious bad behavior is often perceived by colleagues, bosses and subordinates as failures to act more than as obvious mistakes. That touches on a larger point mentioned earlier in this article—bosses act and set the course for an agency; they can change course if they see one way isn’t working, but, inherently, they set the course.

We’ve all had bosses who exhibit one or more of the behaviors noted above. Do you? EMS agency supervisors, managers and executives need to take the time to evaluate their own behaviors in various situations and ask themselves, “Am I a bad boss?” The answer to this question won’t be easy but it will be critical to the success of your agency.

References

Zenger J, Folkman J. Are You Sure You’re Not a Bad Boss? Harvard Business Review Blog Network, https://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/08/are_you_sure_youre_not_a_bad_b.html?cm_mmc=email-_-newsletter-_-management_tip-_-tip120712&referral=00203&utm_source=newsletter_management_tip&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=tip120712.

Raphael M. Barishansky, MPH, is director of EMS for the Connecticut Department of Public Health. A frequent contributor to and editorial advisory board member for EMS World, he can be reached at rbarishansky@gmail.com.