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I Have A Great Boss – Part 1
Careers & Jobs 18 years ago No Comments

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contributed by Beth Cowan [architect / avid blogger / continent hopper] 


With the release of The Devil Wears Prada, it’s quite apparent that there are many degrees of Bad Boss Syndrome. We’ve all had one, probably more than one in some cases. But without bad bosses there would be no Dilbert, no Office Space, GreatBoss.gifnothing to unite the workers over beers. And that is a world I don’t want to live in, my friends. On the flip side, how many of us can say we have a good boss” Or a great boss” Have you, or anyone you know, ever had one” They aren’t as rare as we might be led to believe. I’ve had several over the years, and in having them, I‘d like to think I’m a much better person to work for / with / around. Most of my friends chalk it up to luck, but actually, it’s a bit more than that. I know what to look for when interviewing.

How often have you gone into an interview so nervous that when you came out you couldn’t recall the tiniest detail of your potential employer” What most people don’t understand about the process is that interviews serve to give both of you a chance to size each other up, to see how you’ll get along. My first good and my first bad boss both prepared me for spotting the signs of who I’d be happy to work with and who I’d be better off passing on.


So What Makes A Good Boss”

Depends on who you are and how you work. I like my boss for many reasons…

He cares that I like my job and that I’m interested in what I am doing. He understands the importance of having happy employees. We’re more productive if we care. We’re more thorough, more attentive. We work longer and harder, which can only be good for him.

He pays me fairly because he doesn’t want to lose me to a higher offer. Turnover is disruptive in many, many ways, all of which cost the firm money. Any employee leaving the firm will be expensive — the higher up, the costlier. He has a firm grasp of just how much it takes to train a new employee. Much better to treat your employees as long-term investments than chance them leaving shortly after joining.

He hired me for my talent and experience, and he expects me to use both daily. He is not one of the all-too-common architects who react with derision and contempt to other people’s designs and ideas. He does not view his employees as brute force for his genius.

He still works on the studio floor and doesn’t push all the unpleasant duties onto me. Instead of keeping all the fun stuff for himself, he doles it out in an effort to make sure we’re all still having fun with the job in the midst of all the grotty stuff we do. And he takes his fair share of mundane duties, including unloading the dishwasher and making the morning coffee.

I can rely on him and take him at his word, no matter how busy his day is. If he says he’ll meet with me, he will. If he can’t, he makes sure to speak to me to reschedule. Leaving an employee hanging on waiting for a decision only impedes progress and he understands this. He’d rather I took care of it without his input than have me grind to a halt waiting for his schedule to clear. But I can always count on him for a timely resolution.

He believes in education and is more than willing to support the pursuit of it. The more I know, the more valuable I am to the firm. IDP credits, licensing, anything that will make me a better architect, he’s in favor of and considers it part of his duty to ensure I am able to take advantage of.

He is very concerned about the mix of his employees, their abilities, and how we work together. We all get along reasonably well considering our varied backgrounds. But we also have a great range of experience, talent, strengths. I knew before we started to work together the strengths and weaknesses of my assistant. I was told what I could use him for to great advantage, where I’d need to push him a little, and what areas he wouldn’t be able to handle. And my boss has come back to me many times to check that he was correct in his assessment, that we are working well together, and that we are both happy.

He likes his clients and is passionate about the work he pursues. The thing he takes the most pride in is not his awards. It’s his clients. A good 75% of our clients have their names attached to multiple projects. Personally, I am handling three projects for one client. My boss and the clients like each other and understand one another’s goals. And because he has geared the practice toward the work he enjoys doing, none of our projects get shuttled about, looking for someone, anyone to work on them. Our smallest projects he gets involved in because he simply enjoys the work.

He understands that I have my own process and that I need to work my way in order to get things done. He does not stand over me and tell me what to do next because that’s the way he would do it, therefore it is the only correct way to do things. If I need to have two cups of coffee and chat with everyone in the office before settling down to work, so be it. As long as I produce.


Stay Tuned!

But how do you know what it’s going to be like when you’ve got portfolio in hand” Next month I’ll reveal a few keys things to look for, most of which are subtle, some of which are obvious.