subject: Some "Don'ts" In Effective Leadership #1 [print this page] Some "Don'ts" In Effective Leadership #1 Some "Don'ts" In Effective Leadership #1
This is my pet peeve article today. This goes back to my corporate days and why I finally had to leave. I hope I don't bore you with it, but maybe I will hit some sore spots to share with you.
I worked for a very large corporation, about 45,000 employees in about 11 states and also in multiple overseas locations. Coordination became a nightmare if a special project called for multiple site "buy-in" or acceptance by more than one site. Something that would normally take a day or two locally ran in excess of two weeks. If there had to be modifications, it took longer.
This particular company made the decision to "de-centralize", and became a serious problem for those trying to accomplish a project. It was to a point that the organization almost fed on itself. It was a miserable way to work because you were succeeding not because of the system, but in spite of it.
My job was a system analysist, and from a security point, I was the one that controlled the document after the engineer and management decided what security grade it would be. I coordinated the printing of the documents and the control of each copy, plus the storage of all document originals in my division. I even had to develop a library system for information control. This was bad because even the document control had been de-centralized and there was no direction from corporate. I was very fortunate in that I made good friends with the corporate document supervisor and project manager, and had some insight of both the good and the not so good.
Leadership was a real problem because of the internal politics, but somehow their system worked. I never understood why. Many of us took the problem into our own hands and worked without supervision just to get the job done, done right, and finished on time. We then took the finished project back to management for an "after-the-fact" final approval.
Many employers will wait until the "performance review" to point out problems. For an effective review to be of value, nothing in the review should be a surprise to the employee. If the review program is not fair and balanced, the system becomes nothing more than a "tattle-tail" system, and a smart employer NEVER wants that feeling to start among the employees. Dwelling on the past never helps anyone, it's pointless. It's nothing but history. The problems must be corrected as they occur. A "tattle-tail" system will only drive a wedge between the supervisor and the employee.
After 14 years of this, I was finally able to retire. I did not want to retire I had a lot of pressure to leave and I did. It took me about 6 months to finally relax and calm down again. Looking back on it, that was the most stressful time of my life.
There are good ways to show leadership, and there are bad. Looking back on my situation I was probably in one of the bad sides not the worst but bad. The job was very stressful on all of the employees and employee turnover was (in my opinion) very high.
