61–70 of 105 posts
I used to be a manager. Not a particularly good one, but I did earn a fair amount of loyalty with the team and they worked pretty hard. I would tell them pretty regularly that I work actually work for them. My job was to provide direction, remove roadblocks, and help them be successful. And I did care about those things, so that went a long way.
Were they able to fire you?
I've been reading _The Servant_ among a number of other books recently as part of a "management focus" in my role and in many ways so many of these books overlap on many of the hot-areas of leadership. One of the big takeaways is that most of this information isn't just professional, you can (and, IMO, should use it personally). How you handle feedback and responsibility with your direct-reports is going (most of the…
This is a one-weird-trick that management tries to use on underlings: they talk about motivating a sense of ownership to things. But this doesn't jive with the fact that employees are hirelings and thus have no ownership to anything in the company. But it would be convenient for management to push more of the responsibilities of ownership on the underlings, even though they will get none of the benefits. This of cour…
But maybe that too is to convey a sense of ownership that isn't actually there.
Even if there's something good to say about de-religionized practices, right now it is a likely indicator that the person advocating it is a proselytizing Christian.
Servant leadership is great, but boy, this article is a whole lot of nothing. "To be a good leader, you need to trust your team and listen to them!" Gee, thanks. Maybe I'm being overly critical, but there's no insight, no analysis, no practicable takeaways at all; just a bunch of GPT-esque bullet points about how some famous people are kind of nice to their employees sometimes. Feels like crappy content marketing, bu…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No one is suggesting that servant leadership is implying their leader is actually a _servant_. Rather, it implies that serving your team humbly should be a priority over stroking your own ego. I'm not sure how useful it is to generalize the concept as "fake masking". Do some people use it as an ego trip? Sure. Are some people good leaders with their people's interest in mind? Absolutely. Many times in life, someone h…
You don't have to like the decisions your leaders make, but that doesn't inherently make them bad leaders just because the team isn't 100% on board. No no, I'm not saying this at all. I'm completely fine with the leader making the decision, I just have an issue with the narrative that they're a "servant" serving the team. And if no one is suggesting this, why call it "servant leadership"? That is what I mean by "fake…
So to be clear, I agree the label is weird and cheesy and maybe should only be used to describe a type of leader (which again, I'd argue is just a good leader). Leaders absolutely should hold themselves to a higher standard due to their responsibility for the good of the team and the fact that they DO have more power.
I'm still not clear on what "pretending" to be a servant would look like. If I'm a shift manager and someone needs to sweep the floors before we leave and one of my team members is a teenager with an exam the next day—damn straight, I'm going go send them home early and sweep up myself. That's "serving" them—putting them before myself. But quite frankly it's also just the right thing to do. So in a sense, yeah I'm a servant in that I am serving my team members, but holy hell if you say, "Yeah, I'm a servant leader so why don't you go ahead and take off early." You're a cheesehead, a weirdo, and probably not actually a good leader. And in that case yeah I agree it's a weird play.
Servant leadership is great, but boy, this article is a whole lot of nothing. "To be a good leader, you need to trust your team and listen to them!" Gee, thanks. Maybe I'm being overly critical, but there's no insight, no analysis, no practicable takeaways at all; just a bunch of GPT-esque bullet points about how some famous people are kind of nice to their employees sometimes. Feels like crappy content marketing, bu…
Feels like crappy content marketing because it is cfappy content marketing. Sometimes I miss a downvote option on HN.
Someone is annoyed at work and an argument is getting heated? Try responding with compassion to deescalate and prod a little to see what could be behind that raised emotion.
Its hard - you have to actively moderate your own emotional state and avoid being swept up by others'. When I can manage it though I feel much better about handling all sorts of stressful situations.
Its one quality I would hope to find in any form of leadership, but especially for those who espouse a servant leadership methodology
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> No one is suggesting killing yourself for someone else’s dream. Nobody makes it that explicit. Managers just ask you (your team) to deliver more story points, go the extra effort to meet a deadline, etc. And the risk of setting boundaries (saying 'no') to the implicit ask is not being viewed as a "team player", not being promoted or given a raise, or, at worst, being fired. I am willing to take those risks. Not eve…
Most people can’t or won’t take ownership of something, as they don’t want to take the risks - as you note. It’s much easier (mentally) to be told what to do and hope it eventually works out. And if it doesn’t, blame everyone else.
I understand where you're coming from, I'm the same way. It's about taking pride in your work and taking responsibility for the success and quality of your own work.
As you noted, it's risky in that others may take issue with your actions, but it's not nearly as risky as the hell that is being forced to work 8 hours/day for things that don't matter to you at all.
I'll speak only for myself here, but:
Not everyone is made like that, but on the flip side it's why I'm typically respected and appreciated. And for environments that don't appreciate that attitude I quickly leave or am pushed out (generally I leave).
perfect example, a few years back I left a position due to power politics. Before I had gotten there a man had been removed as head of the It department but due to the good old boys system had wiggled his way into the CISO position.
I gave it about 8 months but at some point it became clear the CISO was using his position to ensure IT failed overall. And indeed about 3 months after I left, that's exactly what happened and the whole of IT was once again put back under this man.
I could have chosen to simply do the work, take a paycheck, and not care. That's not me. Compromises are always made, but if I fundamentally cannot take pride in my work then I don't stay.
I've been reading _The Servant_ among a number of other books recently as part of a "management focus" in my role and in many ways so many of these books overlap on many of the hot-areas of leadership. One of the big takeaways is that most of this information isn't just professional, you can (and, IMO, should use it personally). How you handle feedback and responsibility with your direct-reports is going (most of the…
＞ How you handle feedback and responsibility with your direct-reports is going (most of the time) how you do/ought to do things with your own children Your children don't have the option to show you the finger and move to another family. Nor (hopefuly) are you paying them to be your kids. I think it fundamentally changes what you should expect from one and not the other, especially regarding responsibilities and owne…
Not exactly. I want my kids to become great people. I genuinely care about them and their well-being.
This is the same thing with the people that I work with and for. I care about them and want to them to get better.
> And I'm sure you won't address your son not taking out the trash the same you'd deal with a team member that don't release the features on time.
Maybe, maybe not. Did they "give the finger" or did something just happen that is a learning experience? If it's a communication problem, these are fundamentally easy to address.