(Original Article)
Written and edited on the 6th of October 2023 by Anoop Prathapan
Who is a boss/mentor?
Google Dictionary states the meaning of the word mentor as a qualified and experienced advisor. To elaborate a bit more, the mentor is a person who guides, trains, and supports his subordinates/juniors/trainees and helps them identify their strengths, weaknesses and capabilities and nurture them the right way. He is an ally to his mentee.
Who is an assistant?
An assistant is a person who officially ranks below another person whom he is intended to assist.
Who is a good boss?
A good boss necessarily doubles as a mentor, who, as I said in the first paragraph, guides, trains, and supports his subordinates/juniors/trainees and helps them identify their strengths, weaknesses and capabilities and nurture them the right way. The responsibility of a good boss is not just the execution of the tasks the right way or occasionally treating the team to team lunches or dinners. He has to necessarily have the skills to identify the strengths and weaknesses of his team members and decide on how each member can perform in predetermined situations or impromptu. He needs to do a SWOT analysis on his immediate assistant/subordinate so that he is well aware of what stuff his assistant is. He has to have the skills to nurture the capabilities of the assistant/subordinate in such a way that the assistant could become efficient in handling the team and the primary task all by himself in his boss’s absence. That way, he plays a key role in developing the skills of the subordinate to the next level. He should not have a trace of ego. He should be confident in himself and his position to the extent that he is not even one bit insecure if his subordinate grows to a stature, sufficient enough to outshine or outperform him. He should be a role model to his juniors and his words and deeds should be the right things at all times that his juniors proudly copy-paste on themselves. He should provide opportunities for his immediate subordinates to perform (in his presence and absence) and not one who permanently blocks their further growth. He should appreciate the capabilities of the subordinates and nurture them irrespective of their academic qualifications or socio-economic backgrounds and confidently fill in whenever they fall short, devoid of ego. Above all a good boss is an ideal man who is generous, kind, empathetic and one who lets his team members perform independently whenever the right opportunity arises.
Who is a good assistant?
The role of an assistant is to support the boss in whatever he does legally/technically/logically correct and to suggest new or better ideas for the implementation of a task that is being jointly done. The assistant might be able to plan for the day and chart tasks accordingly which the boss might or might not follow. The assistant could take care of the others in the team deciding on what work they should do on a particular day or not and whether or not they could be granted leaves etc. Moreover, the assistant is obliged to carry out all the sensible and logical orders of the boss at all times. The assistant, in all teams, plays a vital role in maintaining the structural integrity of the team as the boss is busy performing the major tasks that decide on the output of the team.
How can a good boss (one sans ego and insecurity) benefit from a good assistant?
A good assistant can relieve the boss of all administrative responsibilities in running the team, facilitating the boss to concentrate more on the technical aspects of the job. A boss who has a capable assistant who can perform and take up responsibilities effectively in his absence can give him the much-needed rest elsewhere, if he has to, due to medical or personal reasons, without getting worried about the daily functioning of his team. He can concentrate on his research simultaneously (if any) along with the job when his assistant takes care of the day-to-day activities of the rest of the team. A good assistant should be sensible, practical and quick enough to take up the lead role and take things forward without waiting for permission from the boss, if the situation demands, and update the boss of the proceedings after the urgency is taken care of.
How can a good assistant benefit from a good boss?
Working under a good boss provides the necessary favourable environment for the assistant to develop new technical skills which are the unique strengths of his boss which he must have gained academically, practice them under guidance and later perform them independently, learn and practice man-management and eventually grow higher from that point where he was when he joined. A boss sans ego and insecurity and who does not micromanage is a treasure to the assistant.
How can one be a bad assistant?
A bad assistant never keeps time. He drops in late and does nothing to execute whatever is required for the normal functioning of his team. He never does his job properly nor does he assist his juniors in getting their work done. He does not get involved in teaching the juniors. He has poor communication skills and talks rudely to the boss and other teams in the organization, instigating their displeasure as well. He leaves the workplace early without permission. Because of all these, he is the cause of a permanent headache for the good boss. An assistant, by definition, is not just a scribe and has better things to do - a bad assistant prefers to just be a scribe.
PS: Ironically the insecure and egoistic bosses in certain workspaces hold on to such assistants for long, for they could be sure that there will never be a threat.
How can one be a bad boss/ or a boss who is a total misfit for his position?
To be the “ideal” bad boss, you need to micromanage 24/7 - look into every minute detail regarding the team members and find faults to demoralize or degrade them. They can even find faults with the outfits of the very juniors and give them unsolicited coaching on how to maintain the moral correctness of an older generation, the youngsters might not be comfortable with. They can limit the activities of their immediate assistants by not allowing them to perform independently (the keyword here is “independently”) or by demoralizing them by editing their scripts whenever possible, for no substantial reason at all. Such misfit souls can stay blind to the extra-curricular capabilities of their subordinates so that they never share/gain the limelight which they naturally deserve. They can undervalue and doormat the capable subordinates by assigning them menial jobs backstage at organizational events when in reality they must be more capable, and efficient and possess more presentation skills than anyone on stage. When they go on leave, they do not allow the immediate assistant to take up their role and prove their worth/capability in independently managing the team and providing output - they just make sure that another team leader from elsewhere is roped in, to perform the tasks for their team in their absence so that the assistant remains an assistant at all times. Thus the assistant gets no opportunity to prove his metal and/or stand a chance to be considered to be the next team leader at least when there is a man-power deficiency. When such extreme crises occur, people leading such repressive environments might even go to the extent of assigning the responsibility of two teams to one team leader, even if that new team leader is physically/medically incompetent to handle both. To cut it short, be it dawn or dusk, they make sure to vigilantly stay determined to not let anyone lesser take up their position or come up the ladder at the workplace and cunningly blame such assistants being academically under-qualified as a reason to be not allowed to do so. A few of the most insecure, shameful and disgraceful team leaders can even besmirch their immediate assistant before the very juniors by emotionally blackmailing them of poor conduct certificates if they work in coalition with the immediate assistant, whom these youngies depend on, for basic hands-on learning of the job.
Closing comments
These are the observations of this author, who also happens to be an MBA graduate, conceived between 7/2018 and 5/2022. Therefore, any resemblances to people living, dead or retired need not necessarily be coincidental.
Being the best boss or at least a good boss is the most pristine way to bring up the next generation in the workplace. As the British saying goes "Employees leave their bosses, not their jobs when they quit". Leadership skills can never be purchased or borrowed or gained through course curricula. It is not a qualification, but rather an innate capability that stays to the grave. Great leaders are always invariably born. No workplace desperately needs any worker in particular to stay relevant, rather it is the worker who might always need the workplace as a platform to effectively demonstrate his skills to the best of his ability. Only morons hyperbolize that the earth might either stop spinning or might spin less fast after they retire. Nothing ends in any organisation when one person leaves, however good he might have been, for there is always another candidate who was born to take up their place sooner or later. The best a boss could do is to identify the right person at the right time who is capable enough to take up their position and transfer our skills and intellectual assets to that candidate for him to perform as well as us, or maybe even better than us, during his tenure that succeeds ours. However, to harness that very skill of identifying the right person, one needs to primarily get rid of all ego and feel secure in one's capability, failing which, he might feel threatened by the subaltern, at all times.
Anoop Prathapan
09400643477
Comentarios