Ways a tyrant boss can transform workers’ performance

For the better part of the last decade, I worked under one boss, and he was a handful.

Granted, David was a brilliant man. But he was also ruthless, with sarcasm that cut to the quick. I guess he’d been round the management block a couple of times because he was supremely confident, and to my endless annoyance, always right.

I, on the other hand, was your typical greenhorn, and I knew it. I had prior work experience of course, but none working in a (semi) structured organisation of 30 something employees. My previous role had been at a small consultancy firm and counting our office messenger, the head count rounded off an even four permanent staff.

While the opportunity to join a new industry was exciting, the thought of working for a firm where I knew nothing and no one was the stuff my nightmares were made of.

Imagine my trepidation that first day as I walked through security, past the customer service area and into what, unknown to me, would be my workplace for close to a decade.

David sat in the corner office, strategically positioned to look down his nose at the mere mortals who attempted to walk down the treacherous corridor to the adjoining work spaces. I did not know whether to run or retreat.

I remembered him well from the interview a few weeks back, but it appeared he had no recollection of it, for he glared straight through me, ignoring my best attempt at a sunny ‘hello’as I scurried past.

That encounter became the defining characteristic of our interactions. I sensed there’d be trouble from that point on, but I couldn’t possibly have known what an influence this intense, uneven tempered man would turn out to be.

The HR office assigned me an office ‘buddy’ who’d show me around and make me feel at home. She was a bubbly character who’d joined the company immediately after high school, all the while slaving away at her Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) course- and managing both effortlessly, in that curious way that Generation Y-ers did.

She was brilliant at induction. But it was the unofficial orientation that certified her a ‘pro’ - sharing homemade sweets with me every tea time and giving me the low down on everyone before the week was out. It was a brilliant strategy.

I felt comfortable, and less intimidated by our colleagues. Bless her soul.

She also gave me the brief - David’s unwritten rules - which I was to adhere to, if I intended to make any career progress within the institution.

First impressions

First, I was to dress every day as if I had an appointment with the Queen. David the tyrant was legendary for sending staff back home to change for the smallest grooming mistakes. For my male colleagues, that could be a misstep as innocent as wearing a sweater to the office.

For ladies, breezing in with hair less than perfectly coiffed or changing into sandals once settled in was enough to turn on the tirade.

And once he zeroed in on slackers, he’d smoke them out on a daily basis to ensure they adhered to his impossible standards, or be sent home again and yet again till they ‘got it’ (or left the company, out of sheer exhaustion).

Because I wasn’t paid nearly enough to afford double commutes daily to the suburbs for such minor indiscretions, I borrowed money from my parents that first weekend and headed to Sunbeam (a famous market of yesteryear for ‘gently used’ clothes) for my wardrobe makeover. There, I discovered that looking decent is possible even on a shoestring budget.

Only later did I understand the boss’ idiosyncracies. He was a self made man who had learned to make lemonade. He knew from experience that first impressions are often the only impressions.

Having been turned away from numerous doorsteps, he had worked out a winning formula, which included looking the part: well turned out, suave and bearing the demeanour of a person who could handle the business we sought from potential and existing customers.

His philosophy was one he’d borrowed from the late great Zig Ziglar – that people buy you first, then they buy your product or service. We too, had to look as good as, or even better than the clients we were wooing.

More lessons from the unofficial rulebook were made manifest over the next few months. David liked to attend sales calls with the team at random, and I was warned in advance to prepare for more nitpicking. We had a sales pack that we had to carry to meetings, which I was soon to discover was for the client’s reference, not ours.

That fateful day, en route to a meeting, he asked me for product information that I hadn’t had the presence of mind to internalise. As I thumbed through the profile to retrieve it, I received my inaugural tongue lashing.

I’ll spare you the details except to say that I quickly learnt our products and services by heart, which helped me a great deal when I discovered how unpredictable and unscripted sales pitches can be. (There’s a corollary here – unpredictable and unscripted are words that describe real life too, and preparation, where possible, is our best defence.)

Within the first year, I’d racked up a record number of warnings for all manner of offences. Nothing was too trivial a detail for him.

Modern management style and techniques were lost on him, and there were no professonal coaching or counselling services available at our firm -it was sink or swim.

The 360 degree appraisal did not exist, for obvious reasons. He was the big boss, and his word was law.

I failed to meet his exacting standards often, making mundane errors like filing documents that had not been stacked up precisely prior to punching them (some pesky papers always peeked out from behind others); and more serious offences like failing to turn in reports and proposals on time, or mishandling a client to the point they complained.

For many moons, it seemed I could do nothing right. It bothered me no end, as I was certain that this was personal.

He also made a habit of throwing us into the deep end. We had to think on our feet, for at the most inopportune moments – during townhalls, client meetings and later, even senior management sessions, he’d summon any of us at the drop of a hat to contribute.

Sometimes it was with the full knowledge that we knew nothing of the subject matter, forcing us to quickly dredge up something intelligent to say.

Budgeting and planning sessions were perennially stormy and his impatience with us was on full display. He cleverly appeared to implement bottom up planning – but somehow, the budget figures we ended up adopting after much back and forth were always his (stretched) targets, much to our irritation.

On the occasions he was in a charitable mood, he was a riot, telling us these fantastical stories and congratulating us on tasks that we didn’t even know we had excelled at.

Sadly, those instances were few and far between. More typical was the constant pressure to be and do more, better and faster.

Amazing things

Looking back, the exposure to a supervisor who suffered no fools was a blessing in (deep) disguise. At first it was the small things - a letter I had drafted was returned with his stamp of approval (a large ‘D’ scrawled at the top and no grammar or spelling corrections made on the copy). I felt like I’d won the lottery.

I knew my knowledge of business English had finally met his approval when he allowed me to prepare letters and present them on letter headed paper for his signature without reviewing drafts first. Yes!

Later on, when first my attitude, then my performance improved, the big outcomes hit home. I learnt how to anticipate; to see around corners, and, after years of being thrown under the corporate bus, to prepare for the worst. I developed confidence and an eye for detail.

We learnt it was okay to make mistakes – for he would be angry if you failed at something, angrier yet if you did not attempt it at all!

He raised our standards, so that we could recognise mediocrity in ourselves. While it was tough to be called out all the time, we too, learnt to make lemonade. As we scaled up, and saw the results flow in, we started to believe in ourselves.

We could do anything! And despite being underdogs in our industry we did go on to do pretty amazing things in the years that followed.

Best of all, as the firm grew, he allowed us to grow with it. He gave us larger challenges, bigger titles and fatter pay cheques. (Thank you David.)

What was the tipping point –that dramatic shift that changed my perspective and altered my relationship with David? Well, that’s the subject of my next article.

Mrs Kirimi is a communications professional at a local financial institution. Email: [email protected]