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FREE online courses on CRM - Developing People-The Key To Success - Managerial Inputs in Development - Socialise

 

We are all familiar with cartoons where the boss does his annual unbending act at the office Christmas party, and where the naïve newcomer, having shared a few jovial remarks with him, is dumb-founded at the frost he encounters the next time he comes face to face with him.

 

 

It can be very difficult for a boss to get to know his staff really well, which requires a degree of social contact (varying from culture to culture) but not familiarity. He has to be seen as a human (and humane) being, having close working relationships with his staff while retaining his aura of authority and maintaining his distance! It is hardly surprising, therefore, that most managers, apprehensive of being taken advantage of by the pressure of personal bonds with people they have to supervise daily, retreat behind a wall of feigned indifference, where closeness poses no risk to authority.

 

But consider the advantages of socializing:

 

  • Affords an opportunity to share your values and vision
  • Creates a sense of caring through getting to know each other as people
  • A boss who socializes, within bounds, gets even more loyalty/ respect
  • Gets feedback/ advance information about potentially undesirable situations which may be at nascent stages
  • Dispels rumor or gossip about what the boss is really like
  • Chances of staff development taking place are considerably enhanced

 

Little staff development can take place without close understanding between boss and staff, through the authority vested in him, but also through his own innate qualities of leading and willingness to be led. Men will kill for such officer-like qualities in their boss!!  As the boss, you may review the following points:

 

 

  • get out from behind your desk and cruise your patch
  • put your people at their ease
  • let your hair down just a bit now and then
  • enter inter-departmental competitions; they'll love you for losing with a grin. Ditto for raffle tickets.
  • join them for lunch or coffee once in a while and have brief chats on non-work areas

 

 

We can't all be charismatic generals like Patton, but remember that homely Gen. Omar S. Bradley, the ‘people's general,' eclipsed him, just because this was the area where Patton's ‘weakness' nearly resulted in a revolt in the U.S. Army Division he commanded, and led to his having to make a public apology to his troops… and an early retirement. ‘A medieval warrior, lost in modern times' (as Field Marshal Von Runsted of the Reichstag described him). Abrasive genius has often to give way to effective mediocrity in the interests of staff development and Company goals.

 

 

QUESTION:

 

  1. How do bosses get their work done through staff they do no know well?  What are the secrets of achieving the high-wire balancing act that allows a boss to socialize without getting too close?

 

  1. Why, if at all, is it necessary to be sensitive to staff as people?  Does ‘hobnobbing' with the men pay off handsomely for managers? If so, how and why? Make your stand clear in unambiguous language.

 

 

 

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