Professional Documents
Culture Documents
This is the advice of one of my teachers. He received it, over 15 years ago, from
one of the most charismatic presidents of one Bank of Spain. That advice was, and
still is, worth its weight in gold. I have applied it whenever I have been able and,
moreover, it has also served as a basis for discussion in my classes on leadership
or management style etc. However, throughout my career as a lecturer, consultant
and manager, I have met few people able to put it into practice. That’s to say, I
have met many who have disagreed, not understood or even applied it backwards.
So maybe we should look at what is behind that piece of advice.
Connected with this very point, choosing the best, I heard another tale of the
ridiculous worthy of mention. The old head of one of the largest business groups of
the 80s never missed an opportunity to put his employees in their place. “Do you
know?” he would say to them “Why, in banking, there used to exist the position of
subaltern? Let me explain: sub, because they are under me; and altern, because
when I got tired of them I changed them.” Long live democracy.
Delegating as much as possible means that your boss is only needed when
you, for technical or political reasons, are stuck. In other words, your boss is there
to help solve problems, not to create tension or more problems than you already
have. They clear the way for you to do your job.
Additionally, in this type of organisation you will only ever speak in the first
person: I, me, with me, about me… Your boss is that lucky type of superior being
that is able to play in any position: goalkeeper, midfielder and centre forward. He is
also capable of taking a corner kick and score from his own cross. He will certainly
make sure that he is the one who receives all the medals.
3. And now we get to the final point: having done points one and two,
completely support anyone who makes a mistake. This is something that never
happens in an organisation afflicted with Theodore syndrome. Whenever the boss
does not score (after having taken the goal kick, passed through the midfield and
centred it for the striker who failed in front of goal), you should know that the buck
stops with you, not him. Either you didn’t lose your marker, didn’t create space,
didn’t strike the ball well or whatever it may have been. It was your fault.
That’s how it is. It is that sad. How many managers have we known that were able
to prosper by passing the buck, that’s to say: laying the blame at the feet of co-
workers? This is exactly what bad managers do. They get out of the way when
there are problems, don’t support their people and publicly blame them for
mistakes.
That said, in healthy organisations, your boss plays firmly in defence for the
team and, sometimes, is even the goalkeeper. Their function, first and foremost,
is so the opposition don’t score goals. They also have to be capable of motivating
the team, play them in the right positions and teach them to pass well. A good
manager, like a good central defender or sweeper, gives good support play, will
advance for the corner kicks or even score the occasional surprise goal to get the
result. A bad manager, however, will want to be at the centre of every play, wants
others to do all the work and, most of all, want others to gift him the ball in front of
an open goal.
Another point is that a good manager, like a good central defender, cannot always
clear the ball close to the area; sometime he will have to foul or launch the ball in
“row z”. That’s why the advice “it can’t always be 10/10; it’s about getting 7/10”.
Not all games can be won by a landslide, sometime we need to know how to
simply grind out a win.
That’s what the game is all about. Giving your team room. Signing the best, let
them do their job and completely support them. It is very, very close to being a
good coach. After all, both have the responsibility to lead people.