The boss: to be or not to be (nothing is what it seems)

! You seem the boss! Are you the boss? When we analyze the features, the behaviors and the attitudes of who have the responsibility to lead people or manage teams we come to the conclusion that bosses are who feel as bosses, who assume the commitment to achieve profitable results for the company and for their collaborators.

The society of the image, in which we currently live, can distort the reality of who is in command in an organization in such a way that the appearance to be the boss can create a benefit to whom being in managerial roles does not act as true managers but as “true actors”.

Becoming accustomed to a managerial role using all kind of tricks to assure the continuation in this position and the correspondent good salary is the goal and benefit of those who would like the world not to turn, not to change of temperature and not to suffer any problem in the markets.

Luckily life goes on and change constantly offering opportunities of entrepreneurial improvements, corporate goals and collective performance. It changes so quickly that there is no time to change the mask and act in the next scene.

They are staying out of the picture many managers who proclaim themselves as the bosses, just credited by the name and position hanging from the door of their desks, not by the valuation and acceptance of their collaborators who identify them as responsible of the bad working environment, of the demotivation in the company, the high rate of absenteeism and finally of the poor economic results.

For who is profitable to pretend to be the boss? The answer is easy: for whoever appears to be. And, who harms such appearance? To the whole company and to all the actors who participate in the creation and optimization of the productivity in the organization.

If you consider you act under the appearance criteria to be the boss I would recommend you to think about the huge and serious damages that are impacting to the company in which you’re a manager or director. It is also important you think about your professional career and personal development in the last months.

If you feel as above probably you could request the help of a professional coach so you can decrease your professional fears, to stop pretending and improve your performance focused on the so called transparency.

You would need to learn how to work with emotional intelligence, managing your emotions and the emotions of your collaborators fostering productive and healthy attitudes and behaviors for the organization and for the rest of employees.

You could also use the collaboration and support of some of your collaborators, if possible people that are sincere and honest. Why not this employee you marginalized because he was very critic with you? So the first step you need to take to feel as “the true boss” is the desire to re-learn how to manage and lead giving up to  be a “fiction actor” focused on intending to serve to your collaborators optimizing the company performance and improving the working environment.

Once you are integrated in the “club of the true bosses”, who are recognized by all customers, internal and external, of the company you have to decide if you want to be a normal boss, a good boss or an excellent boss. All will depend on your degree of commitment with the organization and employees goals.

If you decided to become an excellent boss you will need to work with practical intelligence transforming the entrepreneurial and professional excellence in daily tangible actions to manage your team. Any action of improvement of the performance will increase the culture of working excellence, organizational innovation and the culture of prevention for the interpersonal problems in the company.

There are a lot of professionals that due to their attitudes and aptitudes could be consider as true bosses but even for these “special bosses” it is very beneficial to be surrounded by an excellent team continuously providing feedback of their behavior and actions.