I recently attended a retirement party for a former boss of mine. He was in charge of a parks maintenance crew I worked on from 1991 to 1993. It was a great job for a college kid – cleaning the beach, picking up trash and mowing grass out in the fresh air and sun. I had a lot of respect for Je ff back then, and I still do.
I got to meet Je ff’s daughter at the party, and I told her, “I’ll tell you what made this guy one of the best bosses I ever had: he was cool, calm and collected. And he was always fair.”
She replied, “Those are the same qualities that made him a good dad, too.”
It made me think: are you cool, calm and collected as a manager? No one likes a hothead. Lord knows you probably have many reasons to go ballistic every day, but you could alienate sta ff that way. I don’t think you have to “lay down the law” and yell to be e ffective. Je ff is proof positive of that.
One of the other managers used to yell at me frequently, like the one time I got the dump truck stuck on the beach. He lost his patience a lot with me, so I became scared of him. You might say, “Aw suck it up, buttercup!” But honestly, the more scared I became of working with him, the more I screwed up.
What kind of manager are you? It might pay to analyze your management style and get your employees’ feedback on what you could do better.
