Be bold and Learn from Mistakes that Follow

Bold leadership is a sure-fire way to build loyal, willing followers. That’s certainly true in life-or-death situations, but it happens in every day office living too. People are drawn to individuals who take risks in order to challenge injustices or cut through red tape. It’s a power trip that is hard to come down from, when it works.

I had been managing for about two years when I got in full-swing enfant-terrible mode. I seemed to get more responsibility at every turn, which gave me more clout to right wrongs and kiss babies – cementing even more warriors for my loyal ranks. And I was getting good results, too, compared with my predecessors who came from various external sources, but did not know our company or products.

People would go to great lengths for me, and I would do that for them too. Once, an irate customer challenged a QA leader on my team to fly out and install our software upgrades in person so he could feel the full brunt of the pain of notoriously unstable products. I knew we had to accept this challenge but the QA leader started backpedaling, concerned that he would be ambushed at the client location, in person. So I chimed-in, saying that not only would the QA leader be there, but so would I. The customer was skeptical but when we showed up and delivered, everything was smooth and the whole client relationship regained a lot of trust and partnership. High fives all around.

My reaction was completely predictable at the time when someone on my team lost company benefits because he missed a renewal paperwork submission deadline. I expected to have a 15 second chat with someone from the appropriate group and say “My guy was working 40 hours straight because I asked him to. As a result, you and I can get paid with the money he earned for the company. Fix his paperwork problem now. Sorry about the trouble.” But it did not quite work like that. I mean, I said my part. But I was turned down. The date had passed, the benefits were lost, thanks for playing.

I was in shock. I simply could not understand (a) how someone could challenge me and (b) why they would not want to fix this problem because this employee really did deserve the benefits in question. I took it up a couple of notches but no joy – it seems the company was getting very serious about having a formal benefits process, and there were too many large financial risks with violating a policy.

My shock turned to tantrum. I resigned, saying I’d rather not be at a company that could not respect its people. What a stupid thing to do… Suddenly, what had started as late paperwork turned in to a big political problem with senior level attention.

The benefits issue was fixed immediately, my resignation was declined, and I was counseled along with other leaders to do a better job communicating. So in theory, I got what I was asking for even though I looked like a little kid having a fit in the process. It was not until afterward that I realized just how badly I had disrespected people outside of my organization. That was the real damage done in this use case. One-track Focused on the needs of someone on my team, I completely disregarded the needs of others at my company. Those relationships never recovered.

My approach was too extreme. Who works on my team, who does not. Who makes the products go, who does not. I either like everything and I stay or I quit and take my ball home when one thing goes wrong. I had absolutely no finesse or sophistication. Unfortunately, it would take a few more of those cases before the lessons set in.

Thanks for reading this Management Use Case. I'm the co-author of a new book on software development leadership entitled You.next() that features dozens of other use cases for leadership. Please see more at www.youdotnext.com.