Effective leaders in the workplace

Williams and Murry, in their book about starting your own business, The Complete Guide to Working for Yourself have a few simple rules for being an effective boss:

1) Treat employees with fairness.
2) Consider each employee as an individual.
3) Be an enthusiastic leader.

This sounds like a book that Michael Scott has read, or maybe just skimmed. While these may be realistic guidelines, the media rarely portrays “effective” bosses treating employees as individuals; rather, they tend to have a more militaristic interaction spewing out commands to their subordinates. While the media portrays effective leaders as “enthusiastic” (in a stern and serious way), treating employees “fairly” never seems to be a high priority.

Amanda Sposato in her article, “Tips for Being an Effective Boss” says that, “It's fine for a boss to be on good terms with their employees, but it's also important that the job get done. An effective manager finds the middle ground. When they do, productivity increases and the workplace becomes an overall good environment.” Here are some more of Sposato's suggestions:

1.Put the job first
2.Don't play favorites
3.Be honest
4.Make yourself approachable
5.Set an example
6.Give the respect you want to receive
7.Avoid "blaming" confrontations
8.Be willing to pick up the slack

Most “effective” bosses in the media consistently “put the job first” (#1), and are “willing to pick up the slack” (#8), and maybe #5. They're usually extremely unapproachable, dishonest, look for anyone to blame but themselves. The game of favorites is common and respect is rare as most employees are looked at by these TV bosses as incompetent.

Ifeanyi Onuoha offers this advice, "If as a boss, you are the only person who enjoys working in your company, then you have failed. You cannot claim to be a good boss if the only reason your employees are still working for you is because they have no alternative." Most effective bosses in the media seem that they could care less if anyone else is happy. In fact, most of these bosses would probably frown upon outward expressions of happiness as it goes against their strict, stern, "business first" demeanor.

Authors Alaina Love and Marc Cugnon in their book, The Purpose Linked Organization believe that business should leverage individuals' sense of purpose. By using this combined power, they believe that businesses will be more successful than if people are just going to work to collect a paycheck. Effective bosses in the media rarely seem to care about the individual's needs, purposes, or skills.


Looking at listings for CEO positions on Monster.com, I came across the following jobs:

The first one is for a CEO at a Healthcare facility in Texas:

“The CEO is responsible for creating an environment and culture that enables the hospital to fulfill its mission by meeting or exceeding its goals, conveying the hospital mission to all staff, holding staff accountable for their performance, motivating staff to improve performance and being responsible for the measurement, assessment and continuous improvement of the hospital's performance."

Here’s one for a CEO of a treatment facility in Wisconsin:
”The President / C E O must demonstrate visionary leadership, business acumen, and a commitment to Chileda's Mission, 'Unlocking Potential.' This position must completently represent Chileda to the public, to consumers, and to professionals in the field of developmental disabilities."

It seems that bosses are often responsible for a lot of vague and “big picture” items such as creating a certain kind of environment, and “Unlocking potential.” Again, if one looks at the philosophies of Michael Scott, he strives to do these things, but he rarely does them well. Hardnosed bosses in the media rarely seem to care about a nurturing environment or unlocking potential. They just want everyone to do what they say and not ask a lot of questions. There seems to be a bit of a contradiction here, as the Michael Scott type of boss technically seems to follow most of the “rules” of being a good boss, but he is portrayed as a terrible leader. The tough bosses don’t follow many of these rules, but are portrayed as successful leaders.