Why being boss is hardly pleasant

Sometime last month one of the finest journalists I know told me he avoids management functions these days, because, he claimed, he’s an awful manager.

He brought me up short. A clever and sensitive man who writes brilliantly and has a personal manner of some kindness and wisdom, I have always seen him as a natural manager.

But his comment set me thinking, largely because of some recent bad experiences of my own as a manager.

Then a second prompt for thought followed, from a former junior employee, who, like many others, left badly, giving no notice, disappearing with projects half done and unrecorded.

My journalist friend had given a speech about how much I have given to those I worked with and how many had benefitted, and yet without respect or gratitude: not deserving, he said.

A nice thing for a friend to say, but the perspective of a friend, nonetheless, even though there was a period we worked together, and me as his boss.

But, out of the blue, came messages from this employee saying much the same, even that I was the best boss she had ever had, who taught her so much. She had no motive, wasn’t looking for work, and is far from the first to say so.

One, living in Uganda with his family, even wrote it was something said in church that morning that finally prompted him to contact me to set the record straight and apologise and say thank you.

In fact, the practice of just cutting the phone and disappearing to end a job is so widespread, I have no friends in management who haven’t experienced it.

But it is only one of the things we managers experience that knock our own morale. Some of those departures also leave with bitter, personalised notes.

And here’s the thing, we live in a culture where it’s always the boss’s fault. We all read countless articles about terrible bosses, but we don’t read much about employees behaving badly. Yet, the reality is that the dynamic of being a boss is often profoundly unpleasant.

Any youngster with negative feelings towards their own parents isn’t going to come in and say, wow, here’s a great authority figure. They just firmly move over all resentments, back biting, and rejection of authority.

On top of that, the inexperienced don’t know what they don’t know. I have had departure notes saying if only I could have left them alone to do the work, all would have been well, even as the client was complaining repeatedly about their work. Of course, this is youth. A few jobs later, they have learned and my inputs make more sense.

But being a manager is like being a parent to teenagers, you need to take the hate, overhear the name calling and baseless claims, while the growing up, hopefully, happens.

You must also live the dichotomy of everyone seeking your attention whilst parading everything you say with a slant; of attracting manipulators like a magnet; and of dealing with a lot of people being dishonest with you a lot of the time.

You have to try and work out what’s really going on, while being everyone’s enemy, the one person it’s some betrayal of others to be honest with.

There isn’t much thinking you can discuss, because it moves around with new and destabilising bells on it. And you can’t stay silent either, because just redoing everything for a client yourself can be an insult to the suitably fragile junior.

Indeed, now I see it in a way that articles don’t ever capture. For being a manager is frequently a thankless task, is very hard work, and engenders a lot of antipathy. So, now I entirely see his point, that friend of mine.

Slipping routinely into badmouthing and disrespecting your boss — for sure, do it. But only groups where the leadership and rules are respected actually thrive. And that’s a result that depends on everyone’s actions. Not only the manager.

So people who don’t like being constantly criticised aren’t necessarily awful managers. Maybe they are just decent people and should protect themselves from the heat of the top spot.