Kev Kennedy's Blog

Don't take charge; take responsibility

Sooner or later, sometimes just by virtue of being in the same job for a while, you’re going to be in charge of someone else at work. Maybe not a manager; maybe a team leader or duty shift foreman, or some other title that means you get to tell people what to do.

Do we change when we get the opportunity to lead? It often looks like it. Sometimes people suddenly change from being amiable, helpful people to idiotic twerps who are rather too full of their own importance. It’s happened to me before – both as the person suffering the newly promoted twerp, and on other occasions as the twerp.

I read an interesting book recently that said power doesn’t corrupt. Rather, power just allows you to act on how you really feel. So it magnifies what’s already inside you.

If you’re naturally bossy you’ll be a bossy boss. If you’re stubborn, you’ll be a bloody-minded boss. If you’re an egomaniac, you’ll be a self-centred boss, and so on. When the real you shines through, will people like what they see?
 

Created on Mon 9th November 2009 11:52