Why Fair Bosses Fall Behind

There is a very simply misunderstanding most people have: Fairness != being nice.

This almost sounds like a comparison between growth of China and India, where China just gets the things done when it needs to while India lags behind trying to gather people's consensus; and I believe that neither of them are correct. Reasons are pretty simple. If you are a bully, things are bound to fall apart sooner or later while if you are a total pushover, you don't even own what you are doing. I have seen both the approaches working and then failing, at work. As a boss, being a bully can only work when you are sure that you have hired the last pieces of talent who did not have any other option. Well, if that is the case then you better be a bully. Otherwise if you have a got an extremely talented programmer whom you want to run on your terms, then it ain't gonna happen. Pushover - this can only work when the boss has got another talented boss in disguise amongst his own workers who actually works and makes the decisions on behalf of him. It happens; but if everyone is unsure and starts making his own decision then failure is inevitable. In fact, contrary to the article, push over boss has a better chance of sharp success in case he finds a brilliant worker who does not hesitate in taking the lead. Of-course that is not going to work for ever, but might work long enough.

Edit: In fact, as I think about it more, a pushover/fair boss does not have a better but a far better chances of succeeding.

1. A pushover boss earns respect because he listens to everyone - Win

2. The probability of finding an extremely talented worker is equal for both kind of bosses - Win

3. The chance of retaining a talent is higher just because he does not interfere much in the work - Win

4. The chance of succeeding the project is higher because he lets other (might be better) people in team make/alter the decision - Win

"While #2 isn't a very effective leader, their heart is usually at least in the right place"

You know what they say the road to hell is paved with. Lots of people have great motives, but end up achieving nothing but destruction.

Yeah, I definitely agree that for the hardass and the in-between leaders there's a lot of ego involved, and they're trying to "ride" the team to achieve personal ends. The thing is, that frequently tends to work well. It's not necessarily a pleasant environment to work in, but it's kind of like climbing a mountain. It's no fun while you're doing it, but once you've achieved it you can be proud of it for the rest of your life.

I don't think Steve Jobs was trying to make a fun work environment for people - he was trying to push the creation of great products. Conversely, the Michael Scott type boss who tries to be everyone's friend has no personal motives (beyond being liked) and thus no incentive to push for great results.

I guess ultimately building something great is really really hard work, and it can often be really unpleasant.

> their heart is usually at least in the right place

I've normally seen that people in role #2 are just not prepared for the hard conversations that come with being a manager. Sometimes, you have to call people out on poor or below-potential performance. If you do, I've found that most people will either pick up the pace or quit. If you don't, well... things get bad.

The unfortunate chaps in role #2 leave poor performers around to poison the team (most coworkers slack off when they see somebody else slacking, particularly if you have the corporate-standard opaque compensation schemes), avoiding dealing with negative actions until either somebody else comes around and fixes it or the team is killed. I was in this situation once, where a string of #2s had been managing a decently-sized development team I was merging with and it took several months for me to sort through the people, clean house, and build a functional team again.

You know the worst part? There were a few fantastic people who had utterly languished due to being surrounded by mediocrity. On the other hand, that was also the best part, because the "let's talk about how we're going to get you working on bigger and better things" talk is much more enjoyable than the, "concretely, we expect you to be doing X, Y, and Z at your level, none of which you are" talk.

Type #2 managers leave a trail of broken teams and wasted potential in their wake. I respect few things as well as working for an upper-manager who can pick up on that behavior and nip it in the bud. At least, I think I would, if I'd ever seen it :-)

I have to agree. While I prefer both in a boss, it's totally possible to have either one without the other. And I'd prefer fair over nice if I had to pick.