I once had a manager that his other reports and I called “the bossman.” We called him
this in jest, making fun of his authority, because it was so rare that he needed to use
it. Instead, arguments always centered on some problem that needed to be solved,
and what the best approach would be to solve it. If there was a disagreement, heʼd
restate the goals and expectations, make sure everyone was still on the same page,
and then lead a discussion of possible alternatives. Working for him always felt like a
partnership. Decisions were made on the basis of their merit, and any point of view
was allowed, provided it added value to the discussion. He didnʼt care if he was right
or wrong, only that the best ideas survived. In years of working for this guy, I can only
think of a handful of incidents where he asked me to do something that didnʼt already
make some degree of sense to me. His authority, though obvious since he was my
boss, was rarely something he had to exercise or use as a tool to get things done. Was
this guy a good manager? It depends whom you ask.
For many people and organizations, management is considered in relatively strict
and authority-based terms. The manager, or the boss, is the person who has author-
ity and responsibility over a bunch of other people. Often he or she can hire and fire
people, give raises, decide who works on what, and has political and social access to
other important people in the company. Depending on where you work, these things
are true to varying degrees. I learned that the more you talk to different people in dif-
ferent lines of work about managers, the more you learn how differently defined the
role and job can be. There are also huge differences in what employees in different
