by Caroline Dalzell

Created on: February 18, 2009   Last Updated: February 27, 2009

The best boss I ever had was Julie. She was pretty average but everything is relative. And I have had some truly terrible bosses in my time. While Julie was my boss, I did not think she was up to much; she was a nice person but not an effective leader. Next to Polly, though, Julie was a legendary and world-class boss who excelled in every leadership qualification and walked on fluffy clouds of management expertise.

To me, a good boss is someone who leads from the front and sets a great example for the team. Julie was hesitant in leading from the front, although she was happy for me to take on new responsibilities which I enjoyed. A good boss will offer support to team members, both emotional and work-related. Julie did excel in this area. She was (and I'm sure still is) a lovely person with a warm personality, who wanted nothing but the very best for her team. However, this was combined with rose-tinted glasses and an inability to see good from less-good workers; so those who slacked were allowed to carry on for fear of upsetting "friendships" if this was properly addressed.

A great boss will spot your talents and find ways to develop you, whilst not putting you under too much pressure. You should be challenged and stretched, but not to breaking point. Julie was good at allowing me to shine in front of Directors (apart from the day I literally turned green in one of the meetings and nearly vomited on the Director. But they do say you learn from your mistakes?!) Anyway, Julie let me lead important meetings and enjoyed being challenged, seeing this as a great way of making improvements and coming up with ideas. So, overall, she was a pretty good manager and a really nice person, to boot.

Now, Polly. There's an awful boss. It still angers me when I look back to how Polly treated the team. Polly was a poor boss, an awful leader and a pretty despicable individual. In fact, I have nothing positive to say for her, except that was an idiot. Ok, maybe I should have said positive from my point of view, as stupid people are rarely dangerous.

Polly did not have the skills or experience needed to manage a team (or herself, for that matter). She was totally insecure and made up for this by being rude and nasty to everyone, trying to ensure no one talked back or questioned her idiocy. She constantly nagged and had an unnatural obsession with To Do lists, frantically typing these up after each and every one-to-one meeting. She liked To Do lists because she thought it gave her power, she knew what we were doing and saw her job as then requesting an update every six minutes and an explanation of why an item had not been completed within the following eight minutes.

What started off as ludicrous incompetence and irrational, idiotic behaviour, soon descended into bullying. Polly was so paranoid about doing something wrong that she did not hesitate to stab people in the back if it advanced her situation. I'll never forget the day she threatened me after I questioned the logic of doing a stupid task she'd asked me to do. She said "I'm surprised that someone on their probationary period would say such a thing". I was on my probationary period at the time, and it was only later that it dawned on me that this thinly-veiled threat was a threat, nonetheless.

In so many ways, I owe Polly a massive thank you. She spurred me on and fired me up. Bullies really rile me and I went out of my way to stand up for myself and the team. I soon left the job and found something much better working for a very supportive boss. Polly taught me a valuable lesson: the importance of managing my managers.

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