If You’re a Leader, It’s Absolutely Forbidden Telling People What to Do

Before you look like a moron, why don’t you experience another strategy?

In December 2020, I quit my job.

I couldn’t stand being aside by my ex-boss anymore. She always said I was the company’s real estate manager, but she constantly disallowed me in front of the sales team and even in front of our customers.

It was hopeless until one day I said- enough!

Fortunately, I found a full-time job as a writer, but sometimes I remember how hard it was to go to work and face a complete lack of leadership in a company that had everything to succeed.

In reality, the company’s stagnation was the result of constant leadership failures. And if the example doesn’t come from above, where can it come from?

The essence of outstanding leadership is influence, not authority.

I’m a calm person as my father was. He was the most peaceful person I’ve ever met, seriously. When they got angry, I had friends who felt like calling my father, just to hear his calm voice answering the phone.

Even so, with my slow pace when I’m talking, I tried to convince my ex-boss to let me handle my department. Whatever quotes I showed her from top executives, whatever strong argument I had, nothing would convince her that she was wrong.

One month before I quit my job, I was totally freaking out. I’m an entirely positive person, and the endorphins of my daily intense training keep me always with a good vibe, except when I was with her. She could drain all my positivity and my willpower in a matter of seconds by constantly saying NO.

Whatever I would say, she responded NO in the first sentence. NO, because of this. NO, because of that. Constantly the NO word for everything. I never knew anyone like her. So, even an ultra-positive guy like me has limits.

A few weeks before I quit, I started to hang out with some friends and realized every single one of them was frustrated with their boss. The reasons were slightly different, but the pattern was the same.

Transformational leaders are influential, and they inspire, but they do not manage. They give the vision and then empower whoever they’re with to own their own self-leadership.- Benjamin Hardy

Bosses don’t have to manage everything. Actually, they don’t have to manage, period. There are always better people to manage than the owners of the companies (of course, there are always exceptions).

The leader/owner of the company should provide the vision and justify why that vision is the right path to their future.

The leader provides the WHAT and the WHY.

Explaining to the entire team the concept of a company’s success is enough to put everyone working on a purpose. Sharing WHAT the successful achievements to a team or a new employee are, is focusing on the long road the company wants to ride, giving all team members the vision of WHAT the leader sees as success.

Being a transformational leader is a very light way of leadership. Company owners who lead by example, saving time for them to focus on long-term goals, new markets, different methods, innovative technologies, make the team always excited when the boss comes to town.

For the boss itself is better to be outside, learning and studying new tools to share with the team to better achieve the company’s goals and vision, without being 24/7 in the company, like a bodyguard supervising each and every one.

Transformational leadership theory.

I’ve never worked in a big company, but some friends pointedly mentioned stories about confident leaders in their companies that were completely out-of-the-box.

Not so often as it should, some stories really made me curious about these leaders who appear in a team meeting and have the ability to convey a clear vision of the future’s company, a unique passion for the work that has been done so far, and completely recharging the group with positivity.

Transformational leadership is a leadership style that can inspire positive changes in those who follow. Transformational leaders are generally energetic, enthusiastic, and passionate. Not only are these leaders concerned and involved in the process; they are also focused on helping every member of the group succeed as well.- Kendra Cherry in verywellmind.com

James MacGregor Burns introduced the concept of transformational leadership, saying, “leaders and followers make each other advance to a higher level of morale and motivation.”

Bernard M. Bass, in more recent research, defined transformational leadership as an increasing increment of trust, respect, and admiration from their followers. Bass refers to four pillars that complement these kinds of leaders: intellectual stimulation, individualized consideration, inspirational motivation, and idealized influence.

Transformational leadership it’s essentially based on behavioral, character, and charisma aspects. Such leaders are imaginative, courageous, bold, and thoughtful thinkers. They are charismatic, but charisma alone is insufficient. They have to complement the four pillars, especially fortifying the charismatic personality with character.

Charismatic leaders often lose their authority by lack of character. They tend to manipulate their followers and lose their trust and admiration. With a strong character, leaders increase their follower’s trust by implementing an open environment.

Self-determination theory.

There are three things there a person needs to be motivated.

One is capability or competence. People need to believe in their own strengths, efficient in what they do and trust in the tools they use to succeed.

Two is autonomy. People can enlarge, part control how they do their own jobs.

Three is relatedness or relationships. People need connections, links to other people. Recently I’ve been reading Malcolm Gladwell’s “The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference,” where Gladwell refers to a certain kind of people he called The Connectors.

Connectors are essential for more than simply the number of people they know. Their importance is also a function of the kind of people they know. (…) Mark Granovetter, in his classic 1974 study Getting a Job, found that 56 percent of those he talked to found their job through a personal connection, 18.8 percent used formal means, and roughly 20 percent applied directly.

If a leader has these three things, he or she will be highly motivated.

When one of these things gets striped, and a leader starts losing ownership and stops caring about what their managers do, things slightly step out the wrong way.

Final Thoughts

When a leader starts losing faith in their team and tries to do the job for them, he or she is not a leader anymore.

My ex-boss had several problems with employees that somehow cheated, stole, and seriously harmed her in previous companies she owned. She never got over that trauma.

As much confidence as any new employee brought her, any indication of total confidence that I gave her, nothing was enough for her to overcome distrust of others.

That was the beginning of the end of our relationship. She didn’t trust the team or me, so she always walked around us, checking everything we did, always suspicious that we were walking on her back trying to do something different.

Distrust destroyed the team and has been killing the company over the years. I’m suspicious that she will end up alone in the company one day because nobody wants to work in an environment without autonomy, where the leader doesn’t delegate, doesn’t trust, doesn’t motivate, and above all, doesn’t let the employee grow.

For things to get better, you got to get better, said Jim Rohn.

A leader has to be a better and wiser person for companies to thrive.

In my conversations with friends, we all concluded that the company’s size is the size of its leader’s heart.

First of all, leaders have to be good people with a good heart. If the leader has these human attributes, they will only have to improve their transformational leadership.

A leader with a good heart knows how to manage his emotional intelligence; he or she is aware of human attributes such as kindness, sincerity, self-confidence, and willpower.

That was what my ex-boss lacked, but it’s the future of those who want to lead projects, including that of a writer.

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