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Almost
every time I log onto Geekleaders.com my eye is drawn to the poll on
the right side of the home page, the poll that asks if you think you
could do a better job than your boss. The numbers shown in the results to date are very interesting to me.
Almost a third of the respondents are neutral on the question. That means, I guess, they don't know the answer, don't care or could go either way. Of these, I think only the first is a legitimate response. If
you don't know it's possibly because you think your boss is doing o.k.
and is exposed to pressures, circumstances or information you're not
aware of - you're giving him or her the benefit of the doubt. If
you don't care, then why are you reading a leadership website in the
first place or responding to a question like that posed in the poll? If you could go either way, then you have a thought on the question but aren't willing to state it for some reason. That's
like not voting in an election - by not voting you've in effect voted
for the winner and have no claim on being able to complain later.
The numbers I find most
interesting, though, are those that do show a definite opinion on
whether or not the respondent could do a better job than his or her
boss. I am neither a leadership guru nor a statistician, but I find the numbers startling. Only
about 22% of the respondents find their bosses are doing o.k. to well,
while almost half (just less than 47%) think they could do better than
their boss to some degree. This begs the question of why and the further question of what (if anything) can be done about that. The leadership ethos in those organizations is at least slightly off of what it could be and could even be dysfunctional.
Admittedly,
the total number of responses is not high in the big picture of things
and may not even be fully representative of the GeekLeader readership
group. To the experts in such things as this poll shows, and again I'm
not one of those, the numbers may not be surprising. But I assume that most readers of GeekLeader.com are in some kind of leadership role in their organizations. To
say that almost half of those who responded (and maybe more, if you
count some of the ‘neutrals') think they could do a better job than
their boss does not speak well for the goal we all have of trying to
provide the most effective and concerted leadership and leadership
models we can for our staff members.
Perhaps I'm missing something or making too much of something that's not really there. I would be interested in your thoughts on the poll, in any case.
Paul
Williams has recently retired after 40+ years in IT, although in truth
much of that time was spent in EDP, MIS and IS before he became an
IT'er. Most of his career has been in IT management, where he enjoyed
several stints as a CIO for different insurance companies on the West
Coast. While at the same time doing some "real work" in IT, for the
last five years Paul has specialized in developing and facilitating
leadership programs both for his division and for the company at
large. He doesn't think of himself as a technical person but rather as
a business person with some technical skills.
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