I’ve had the great opportunity to work with and for some terrible leaders in my career. Yes, working for terrible leaders can be a great opportunity. It teaches you resilience, thickens your skin, and it helps make you push yourself – for a while.
My most memorable moment working with a terrible leader was when I worked with a classic office tyrant. He was not my direct manager, but even my manager was afraid of him, so I got a significant dose of this person’s work too on top of my own. He was amazingly brilliant, probably one of the smartest people I have ever worked with, and he was able to work through deals and problems with amazing ease. However, he demanded unrealistic deadlines, screamed at people, and used intimidation and threats as his motivational tools. People had complained about his tactics, but the fact that he was contributing so much to the bottom line shielded him from actions from other executives. At first, I bent over backwards to meet his deadlines, working overnight many times, being sent on business travel during holidays, and in general, regularly cowering in his presence. Until I had enough.
That was the day he yelled at me. He yelled at others in the company and one could often hear him, but he had never yelled at me. I was working at my desk when he stormed into my office and cast his shadow over me. There was an error in a spreadsheet I had given him. He threw a small stack of papers on my desk and demanded an answer for the atrocity of providing him work product with an error. From nowhere a sense of absolute calm overtook me and I told him to sit down. Yes, told him, calmly but firmly. To my amazement he did.
Then I said, “Of course there are going to be errors in my work. I’m not given enough time to check my work, your deadlines are unrealistic, and frankly I’m exhausted (OK, that probably wasn’t necessary to share). You wouldn’t know that because you always leave the office well before I do and yet work magically appears on your desk when you come in, even if you drop it off late in the afternoon. Your expectations are unrealistic.”
He stood up and stormed out of my office.
I sat back in my chair and thought, “Great, I’ll be fired by 5:00.” I frantically started tying things up so that the next person to take my job would know where I was on all my projects. Thirty minutes passed, and nothing happened. A couple hours passed, nothing happened. He left the office for the evening. I worked late cataloging my work and then left work exhausted from the anticipation of being called in to be fired. I had even made up an excuse to go to my manager’s office to give him the opportunity to confront me. Nope, nothing.
No sleep that evening, and I came into the office the next morning exhausted. I walked past his office mid-morning and nothing happened. So I went back to work thinking I may as well keep busy until I get called in. It took a full week to pass before I finally convinced myself that I wasn’t going to get fired. Nothing was ever said about the incident. Work was dropped off by his secretary in the mornings and I completed it and dropped it off on his desk. Okay, I’ll admit the first few times I waited until he was out of his office to drop it off, but finally I just went in and gave him the work product. Eventually we started speaking again, and although the work he gave kept coming at a solid pace, it did seem to be more reasonable.
About 6 months later I was approached with a great opportunity and decided to leave the company. On my last day he walked into my office. He told me that he thought I was one of hardest workers in the company, that I was smart, had a lot of potential and that he didn’t want to see me leave. He also said that the thing that impressed him most was that I had stood up for myself. I was absolutely flabbergasted. When I recovered from the shock, I thanked him for his kind words, and I told him, “If you had told me any of those things 6 months ago, I probably wouldn’t have even gone to the interview.” That was the first piece of advice I ever gave an executive. He offered me a promotion and a good raise. I thanked him, but I still said no. He stood up, shook my hand, and left my office.
I look back now and am so grateful for that job, and for working with him. What I didn’t realize then was that he didn’t care what my position was, he kept giving me more and more challenging work. I grew my skills and experience tremendously, getting opportunities to do things in that many people don’t for years. My confidence grew, because if I could work with him, I knew I could work with anyone, and succeed in any environment. I will always be grateful to him for those things.
However, as a leader, he lost me. I’ve wondered, what could I have accomplished if he had tried positive motivation? Probably better work product. Less time would have been spent trying to avoid his wrath and more would have been spent on pursuing new ideas and innovating. Had he been approachable, what knowledge could he have shared that would have made me better? His tactics created a lose/lose situation for both of us, and although I grew a lot, it came at my personal expense.
Months later I went to lunch with one of my former co-workers. Things had gone back to the way they were and the person who had replaced me had already left. It was unfortunate. Great leaders learn from their mistakes and he had not. Sometimes leaders will listen to your advice, and sometimes they won’t. Two more lessons he taught me.
