I continue to talk about taking charge of your life. Today I have an interesting topic called the ‘irrelevant boss’. I am sure I am an irrelevant boss to a lot of my subordinates in the place I work. This thought really came to me when I was still young and a lot of people talked to me about the importance of a job, the importance of a boss in that job, the importance of promotion because of the boss, the importance of designation, the importance of relative designation and relative growth. In all this, the gentleman who is called the boss or his boss’ boss in that hierarchy, played a very significant role for quite some time in my life till I discovered that maybe it’s an irrelevant boss. The reason I say this is an irrelevant boss is because of no disrespect to the boss, but for something else.
If you saw a couple weeks back, there was a football game in which Rooney scored a couple of goals. Or, Sachin Tendulkar just completed his two hundred, the highest score in a one day international cricket match or a fifty over match. Sachin did not desire to be a captain, he achieved greatness without being a boss, he achieved a milestone which no man in history so far has achieved, and that greatness was achieved because he was looking inward, he was not looking up to a boss, it didn’t matter who the captain was, it didn’t matter who the coach was, what mattered to him was that he looked inside and discovered the strength and found the ‘wow’ in being who he is.
In my mind as we work through our organizations our obsession of looking up to our bosses and taking their words very seriously is preventing us from taking charge of our lives. The day I started looking at the boss for what he is, which is one more element contributing to my success amongst ten other things, and I started looking more inward and finding out what my passion in life is, what is it that I really like to do, what is it that I really achieve, who the boss is became far less significant in my life. And that’s how life changed.
So my learning from life is that the irrelevancy of who the boss is becomes very important. We are obsessed with relative promotion, relative positioning and who do I report to. We jump like ping pong balls from one place to another, just to solve that bit of an issue, which I think is quite irrelevant. We should be in the business of discovering what is it that our passion drives us to do. So If your passion is to play forward in a football game, it doesn’t matter who the goalkeeper is and it doesn’t matter who the captain is, because you want to be the best forward in the world and if we can find that kind of passion within ourselves then I think you will understand why our obsession with irrelevant facts like who the boss is prevent us from taking charge of our life.
So if such events like the irrelevant boss have helped you discover that position and take back control in your life, I can tell you that there are so many entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley and also in India who decided to call it a day and started their own business because they thought their boss didn’t get it and they decided that they want to be their own boss – and a huge amount of success was driven by them because of that eventuality. It’s not necessary to start your own company to prove that point, I think that within the environment that you are in, the moment you stop attaching too much relevance to who your boss is and the relative scale that you are in, and start focusing on what drives your passion, I think that will drive you to take charge of your life and to drive transformation and the passion which you really thoroughly enjoy. If you think the same way as I think or if you have stories which are different or similar, we all will be very happy to listen to them and share with others.
(7 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)
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Hi Vineet,
I agree with you completely and would like to relate this with a role based organizational structure and relevence of one’s passion with the role that he or she wants to have in an organization. This obviously needs to come with some credence.
To maintain an organizational structure it is also important for his or her boss / manager to understand the given role and the relevence of the same for his portfolio to succeed.
Asit
Irrelevancy of who the boss is might be very important…but irrelevancy of who the Leader is, is not. There might be a subtle difference between the ‘Boss’ and the ‘Leader’, but there is a significant difference in the way these two terms are used. There should not be any doubt in accepting the fact that a leader is one of the core ingredients in the success recipe of any organization. So, when you start bringing in the notion of a Boss, all the questions that you raise do seem to be genuine problems, but looking at the very same questions in the context of a Leader, they assume a very different role.
I think it is very important to know who your Leader is, what are her short/long term objectives are, and how she is leading you to achieve those objectives. If you trust your leader, are in alignment with her objectives and believe that she is receptive to your good/bad feedback, you would probably not see these questions as problems anymore. You would, in that case, be moving along with the flow; helping your Leader reach the set objectives… instead of trying to move away from it.
Now, if you say “Irrelevancy of who the Leader is very important…”, that would be another discussion in itself
Before I posted my comments, I just thought of checking with Google what it had to say about ‘Boss Vs. Leader’ and it came up with an interesting answer:
http://www.boyscouttrail.com/content/minute/minute-1650.asp
[To give where the credit is due, I am just quoting the URL…instead of copying the content from that site].
Very aptly captured Vineet. The beauty of the fact is that most people need to go through a cycle of moments/years to appreciate the above mentioned fact. Today handling a smaller team myself I appreciate the value of ethics and principles which go a long way in managing people. There is no “boss” management by peers and subordinates but the beauty of a series of one to one and one to many relationships which are based on transparency, responsibility and shared common values. Importantly if a concept of a succession plan is actually brought to practice (which is surprisingly absent in most management practices) – the concept of boss would be all but extinct.
I could not agree more with you Vineet. Be it your statement of “irrelevant boss” or “be your own boss” or work for yourself and not your comany” – all send the same message that do not work in a direction just for the sale of working and proving that you are justifying your salary but work to learn, to develop your skills, to create something new, to execute a plan etc. If we have an objective in mind and fortunately we get the chance to work in that direction, really the boss doesn’t matter at all. You will be self driven in that case and no carrot or stick other than your own defined goals can lure or scare you to do something at work, however you will be able to work without supervision and hence can improve the staff efficciency also by taking the job of your boss who is not required any more
Hi Vineet,
Very good topic and more inspirational.
Couple of times we are seeing different views on the word “BOSS” when it comes to different regions of the countries in the world.
When we compare with India most of the times subordinates may think my BOSS is controling my life line but in the true Boss should be irrelavent to your life line.
We need educate the people from start level to Top Level to know about how the boss is relevant / irrelevant in your every step of life. Many companies (even in HCL) while doing the induction programs or couple of other meetings always points to one Boss(RM) like everything is your RM At that point many people changing the thought process like we need to depend on RM, which shouldn’t be the case. At that time We should point them to how can you change your life style in this company and internally how can you change the company.
Thanks for good topic.
hi
vineet
long time since school almost 30yrs.
what i can make out from ur thoughts is to focus on work content whether u r in a personal start up or otherwise..the focus has to be work content….when job is the focus …other things affect only workwise…personal preferences only distracts…
best wishes
Hi Vineet
Thanks once again for sharing another thought provoking article. I can totally relate to it as for me too who my boss was extremely important to me..the higher in the heirarchy he/she the better….The significance of the boss was immense and this led to my thoughts and approach in the professional sphere revolve around what the boss thinks is right. It is only recently that I have begun to realise the need to move away from the ‘boss centric’ approach to discover my true passion and find out what really drives me. Your article come just at the right time to motivate me as I embark on my journey towards self discovery and awareness…
Regards
Ankur
Hi Vineet,
Whatever you have written sounds like a Gospel to me. I agree with you that no one can influence us better than our inner self. The quest for excellence is from within. It may not always possible to have a boss, a leader or say a Guru to constantly motivate you. But the real essence of self progression is in self analysis. Every day should bring new learnings….we should look for a boss within our own self.
We should always strive to achieve newer things….have to set our own goals…without toeing a line drawn by someone else.
The real mantra of success is Be Self Driven…..inertia without the external force.
Rgds.,
Siddharth
Dear Vineet,
What touched me over and over in all our blogs is the concept of inward looking–theory. I believe if are true to ourselves and start by looking inward, this world would be a far better place to live in. It applies to every sphere of life..n specially to leaders in various capacity who fail to look inward during the time of crisis!! I hope more and more people relate to this concept and start this holistic journey. Regards,Sukumar
Sir,
I feel that we need to slightly change our perspective towards the hierarchy. As long as we see the hierarchy as chain of power centers, we look up for moving a desk from here to there or there to here. We will continue to create organizations that has irrelevant bosses. When we see the hierarchy as hierarchy of roles, then we start look inwards.
It is matter of perception and perception is due our conditioning. Unless we drop our conditioning, we will always find irrelevant bosses.
Thanks for a good one.
Agreed, you should not need a Boss to perform … I don’t … (Borrowing your parable) Things get tough when you have hit 200 runs in a match and there are only 6 people watching and these 6 can’t make you famous or inspire you to keep doing your best day after day.
What I am trying to say is that in most organizations, it is the Bosses who are the Chinese wall between our performance and its visibility. Growth is largely driven by visibility and perception; and perception is reality for most people.
So is the boss really irrelevant ?
Hi Vineet,
I quite agree with you on the boss stuff. Indeed, we are all our own CEO. And if we always think like a CEO and make a CEO’s decision for ourselves, we will be far more better off.
Looking inward is important. Thanks for sharing and reinforce the inspiration.
Jeff