How to Be a Great Boss with Debra and Ken Corey | Episode 173

You know, if you, if you give every waking moment to the company, what else are you taking that time away from? Are you taking it away from sleep? Are you taking it away from your family? Are you taking it away from a hundred other things that would recharge you? So no matter how much a company wants you to give 100%, I would caution anybody listening, think twice about that. Give as much as you can. Sure, why not? We all want to feel like we're doing a good job, but save a little bit for yourself so you don't burn yourself out.

That was Deborah and Ken Corey. I'm Ben Morton and this is your podcast. The Ben Morton Leadership Podcast is the weekly show that brings you inspiring interviews with global thought leaders, CEOs and MDs. Sometimes they'll be from huge organizations and other times they'll be from small businesses that you've likely never heard of. No matter what the case, there will always be something in this show that you can take away and use to help you be an even better leader. In this episode, as you've just heard, we are talking with Deborah and Ken Corey, co authors of the book Bad Bosses Ruin Lives, the Building Blocks for being a Great Boss. After my first scan of the book, I thought that the people who would most need to read it were going to be the least likely to do so. But as I started to read it more deeply and then when I started to talk with Deborah and Ken, I realized that it's a book for anyone who wants to be a great leader or boss. Why? Because we all have bad boss tendencies inside of us and we can all fall into the bad boss traps so, so easily. So listen on to Lead on, folks. In this episode, you're going to hear us talking about some of the shocking statistics around the prevalence of bad bosses. As I've mentioned, we're going to look at some of the most common bad boss traps and how to avoid them. The 10 types of bad bosses that Deborah and Ken have researched and describe in the book. And perhaps most importantly, fear not. This isn't just a podcast episode where we're simply highlighting all of the problems. There are solutions too. Towards the end, you're going to learn about the six foundational building blocks of being a great boss. That is it. By way of an introduction, let's dive straight in and please enjoy the this amazing conversation with Deborah and Ken Corey. Deborah, Ken, welcome to the show. It's great to have you both with us. First of all, I'm curious to ask, and I think it's probably quite sad. I think most people listening and I think your data backs this up, right. Can point to at least one bad boss they've had in their career. But that being said, what was it that led you to write this book in particular, what was the catalyst for both of you?

So the title of the book actually came from a conversation I was having with my co author of my second book that I was writing and we were writing, it's a book about employee engagement and we were writing the chapter on leadership and management and I was telling him a story of how I had had this bad boss and how this bad boss had ruined my life. And the phrase, he goes, I love it, I love it. We have to use that, we have to use that. We never used it in the book but the whole idea and the conversation that we had was how when you have a bad boss, and I mean a really, not really bad boss, not every bad boss does this, but it just doesn't make things difficult for you when you're in the office. But you bring it home with you, you can't shake it off, it stays with you, it impacts your personal life, your family, your friends. So that was probably about three years ago. And over the years I've been talking to more and more people about the types of bad bosses that they've had and even just self reflection about all the things I've done wrong. So all my books are about paying it forward and helping people learn from my mistakes and other people's mistakes and then give them the tools to do it better. And long story short, from my perspective, that's why I was passionate about writing this book so that all of us don't make these kinds of mistakes and we can all be a great boss.

Yeah, I love that. And like I absolutely agree with the crux and the sentiment of the, of the book because I've experienced it, I've seen it with clients, I've seen it with my wife. Just the, the impact of a bad boss. Right. And the impact doesn't just last for the duration of your time working for that boss. Right. My wife still talks about and is holding some, I guess, baggage trauma, you could use that word from a boss going probably four jobs back and a good, good while back. But so whilst I've said all of that, what would you both say to, or maybe Ken, I'll direct this question to you. What would you say to the person who says yeah, but surely the title of the book is a little bit sensationalist. Right? Do they really Ruin lives. It's not really that bad, is it? Like, come on.

I would say that a little bit of sensation is never bad when you're selling a book. Let's be honest, right? But the statistics say that 99.6% of the people that we surveyed have had a bad boss, and a significant number of those are significantly bad. As Deb said, the trauma that a boss can introduce into your life is incredibly significant. There's research that says that a boss is tied with your spouse for the impact they can have on your life. Now think about that. I've been married to Deb for a few wonderful years now, and she's had a major impact on my life.

You're not going to start twitching or anything?

Not on camera, dear. Not on camera. But I shudder to think that some of the bad bosses that I've had, or God forbid, some of the bad bosses I have been, have the same impact on my life or the lives of the people that work for me, as, you know, as Deb does. But that's what the survey says, is that bad bosses can do horrible things to people, to their lives, to their ongoing careers, to their families. It doesn't just stop at the end, you know, at five o'. Clock.

Yeah. I think, going back to your question about the title, though, also, we were of two minds, I have to say, because normally both Ken and I are the type of optimistic type of people. Glass Half Full. So, you know, all the titles of all my other books are more like Positivity, proactivity, those types of things. But we intentionally wanted this to just capture people's attention. But the second part of the title is more us, which is about the building blocks for being a great boss. And I think that, you know, the good news is it gets your attention. The bad news about the title is some people think that it's actually not for people who want to be a great boss. So we actually. I did one post once that said, actually, this is. This book is for those of you like us, who just want to learn some new ways to be great. We're not saying you're ruining lives. We want to make sure you never get to that point and never ruin people's lives. But it was. I had some people who said, don't use it. It's too strong. And I had other people who were like, it needs to be stronger. Like, who did? I was talking to Thomas Erickson, who wrote the book, surrounded by idiots. No surprise. He thought we needed to be a bit more in your face with the title. So I don't know what's the perfect title.

I'm glad you mentioned that, though, because in fact, I'm looking at it on my piece of paper here. One of the. The questions I initially came up with to ask you both was, and it's written down like, it strikes me that the people who need to read this book the most are the ones least likely to pick it up. But then the more I read the book and reflected on it, the more I realized actually that's not, not the case. Right. Because we can all be a bad boss from. From time to time. And that was the other statistic that really jumped out of the book from me. Whilst I think you said, Ken, it was 99. Was it 99% have had a bad boss or 99.6%.

I mean, basically everybody.

Yeah. And then what was the percentage of people who said that they've admitted to being a bad boss?

80% have admitted to being a bad boss. Of course, the devil's in the detail because the bad bosses that are reported by employees are completely different than the bad bosses that bosses admit to being. So what this says is what's going on in our heads is not what everybody around us is seeing. And we're not talking about it.

We saw that when we were writing the book. Because there's 10 types of bad bosses, which I know we'll talk about later. And when we started writing the book, I was thinking to myself, maybe I've been, I don't know, three, four, five of them. And as we were writing each section, it's like, I've done that, I've done that, I've done that. I mean, but it doesn't mean that I've done it horribly, but I think it's that awareness of, do you know what? We're going to get something wrong to some extent, probably for most of them. And again, it's more about stopping it before it turns horribly wrong.

I think this is a really good idea to make the point. We don't believe anybody wakes up in the morning with a maniacal laughter. I'm going to ruin somebody's day today. You know, people don't do that. People wake up in the morning and they say, I'm going to do a really good job today. I'm going to really make a difference for my people, for my company, for the customers. Whatever their motivation, everybody's trying to do the best they can. The problem is that we trip over these things that we call traps in the book that lead us into bad boss behaviors. And a lot of times what we think of as doing a really good job, like going to all of the meetings and really being present in all of the meetings means that our people can't get to us. We become an avoider boss simply because we don't have any time. The book is really about acceptance. It's about, hey, we've all made these mistakes, you know, Deb touches on the point that she's got a couple of stories in some of the bad boss types. I swear, I had at least one story for every kind of bad boss type that I had done. And it was because, again, not because I was doing that maniacal laughter, but because I was starved for time or I didn't understand what my actions were doing to my people.

Yeah. So before we get on to exploring some of the bad boss types, you've mentioned time a few times there, Ken. When you're talking about the traps again, it strikes me that that's probably one of the most common potential root causes. Do you think that causes us to show up as, let's say, a lesser boss than we would hope to like? If time is one of them, what are some of the other traps that can knock us off base?

Perhaps the other kind of traps that we've seen a lot of examples of are a lack of skills. You don't know how to communicate, you don't know how to delegate, you don't know how to support and that sort of thing, or a lack of knowledge. You don't understand why you should give feedback. You don't understand why you need to give appreciation to people.

Time sort of touches all of those. Because we might not have the skills and the understanding because we don't take the time to do it or we don't do it in the right way. And I just think that as the world gets more complex and our employees are more diverse, to Ken's point, it's really difficult to have the skills and understanding for each and every employee. I mean, one of the stories that. That we share at the beginning of the book is when we first moved from the US to the UK and I had to manage Brits for the first time. Oh, my gosh. Did I make cultural faux pas or. I mean, I was horrible. I didn't do it intentionally. I really. It worked in the us. They loved me in the US and I naively didn't go, didn't think about it, didn't read a book, didn't take a training course. Yeah, it was a. It was a Nightmare for me and for my employees. Luckily, I didn't ruin their lives. They. They were brave enough to tell me I had made mistakes. But, yeah, I think that's another big one.

I've got to ask a little bit more about that, Deborah, if you, if you're happy to share, considering about 60% of those people listening right now will be a Brit from the uk. Like, what was one of those cultural photo piles you made?

Well, keep in mind this was 20 years ago and I do think that our cultures to some extent are blending. But it was funny because we did go to a cultural training class. Ken and I went. They sent us for three days to this beautiful beach in California for cultural training. And you'd think I would have remembered. The one thing they told us is that Americans go right to the middle, you know, say it as it is. Whereas a Brit. And again, it's changed in 20 years, you get to it a bit slower. And that's what I was doing, though. I would like tell my people exactly how I felt. I thought that's what they wanted, that's what they needed. And the story goes that I share in the book is that about three months into the job, one of my employees came to me and said that they have a Deborah Corey support group that meets every Friday and compares stories of how I made them cry because I was just being culturally insensitive. I wasn't under understanding them again. Luckily they told me and I changed.

But yeah, wow, interesting. Thank you for sharing that.

It is worth mentioning that both Deborah and the team called themselves the dream team after they had come to Jesus meeting where they arranged all this stuff and they were amazing together. I think you were there for what, 10 years? Deb.

I was. They were amazing. But one of the things that made them amazing, and I encourage everybody to do this, is if you have a bad boss, don't expect them to know that they're doing it. You know, they were brave, they told me. So. There is, you know, Ken and I want to write a book on the flip side for employees about taking responsibility and ownership because, you know, you can't. Like, I had no idea I was making people cry at all.

But that's interesting as well, though, because we go back to your point a few minutes back there, Ken around which again I, I absolutely agree with. Like there are let's say very, very few because they're potentially might be one or two, like the, the psychopaths out there or because they exist in, in business. Right. Not all psychopaths kill People in with a big knife in the shower, as per that film. But. But let's say very, very few people go to work setting out to make people's life difficult or miserable or. Or to be a bad boss. And as your research has shown, nearly all of us, 99.6% of us have had a. Had a bad boss. You would think because we've experienced people who don't appreciate us, or the boss who ignores us, or someone who blames us when things go wrong, or the micromanager. You would think because nearly all of us have experienced that we would therefore avoid it ourself as a leader or manager. But you're shaking your head, but we don't. Do you? So what is that? What is that disconnect again? Is it pace? Is it lack of training? Or is it all of it?

I really believe that it's, well, I had it tough as a kid. I'm going to make sure that my people come up and have some character too. They need to put in time, they need to face the troubles, and then they'll be strong. I believe we internalize this stuff down below the level of consciousness. We're not thinking about it. It's just. It's ingrained. It's. That's the way bosses are supposed to be. We're supposed to be overbearing and we're supposed to make sure they're doing it right, which is code for micromanaging. Right. Well, we have to make sure they're working hard, which is code for they need to have bums in seats and they need to be. I need to see them typing or they're not working hard. You know, that. That sort of thing. I really believe we get this ingrained and we don't question it. We just. So that's just the way managers are supposed to be. So people were harsh to me, so I'm going to be harsh to my people. It's good for them, builds character. Not necessarily.

Yeah. I think what I've heard also in interviewing people for the book is sometimes you do the opposite, which isn't always good. So, for example, you might have had a boss who was really, really difficult with you, and they were one kind of bad boss, and then you go the other extreme. So, like, the pretender is when you, like, don't share bad news and, you know, everything's all rainbows and sunshine. And I've had people tell me when they've read the book, they're like, oh, my gosh, I went to the other extreme and I was a pretender. So I was a bad boss, but I was just a different type of bad boss. And I think that's the thing we need to remember. And like we created these little cute little emojis for the bad bosses and we made like stickers and everything for them because we don't want people to be ashamed. You know what, just admit it. Like if you're a pretender or put the sticker on, admit it, get better, take the sticker off type of thing. Because at some point in your life you are going to be one of those 10 types of bad bosses.

We all are. That's the point. We all are.

Hey, quick one for you. You've just heard Deborah, Ken and myself talking there about some of the most common bad boss traps that leaders and managers can fall into. Well, if you are worried that your organization perhaps isn't performing as well as it, and if you're worried that some of the behaviors and practices of your leaders and managers are leaving the people that report to them somewhat disengaged, then head over to the leadership training section of my website where you can learn more about the high impact transformational leadership programs that I've been delivering for the past 11 years now. But don't just take it from me that they are high impact and transformational. Here is a very quick 10 second clip from from a recent delegate on one of my programmes.

What we see is not just the leadership journey, but people go on a personal development journey when they are with Ben on the program. And I think that's what gives it that extra richness in the fact that they're not just attending a leadership program where they learn how to be a better leader. They're actually looking at themselves as a human being and that is so, so powerful. So we're almost getting like a two for one approach with Ben, really.

Back to the episode, folks. So are there any of the bad boss types that are a little more common or easier for us to slip into?

I'll do the top ones. Yeah. So the one thing that was really interesting and sort of confirmed because we did a lot of research coming up with the 10 types and just a couple of things about it. First of all, we didn't do any of the evil ones, as you said. So someone did this hilarious post last week because they're speaking at an event in, in October and they did like different types of bad bosses based off of types of, you know, like horrible creatures and things. It's like that's not what these are. These are approachable types of bad bosses. But when we did the study, every single one, 50 or more people have had them, which again shows it's, you know, we're all going to have some of them.

So. Sorry, say that again. So every single One of the 10 types, 50% of people have at least.

50% of each of the. So it wasn't like one type of bad boss. Only 10% of people said they've ever had it. Every Single one was 50%.

So they're all showing up a lot.

They're all showing up except. Well, I'll have Ken talk about the other side of it. But from employees, the top one, which is quite sad because my last book was on appreciation. The top one is the unappreciator. 81% of people, 81% of people said they do not have a boss that makes them feel appreciated.

So that doesn't surprise me, actually. That doesn't surprise me.

Well, as I said, I just. Actually, I wrote two books on appreciation. One for people in HR to design programs and one for managers. Because you're right, I wrote it because another piece of data said that I think 76% of people said that during the entire year, not once has there anybody ever thanked them.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I was hoping it was getting better, but no, it's not getting better. That one surprised me. The micromanager was the second one that didn't surprise me. That 80% of people micromanager, That's a common one. I'm a micromanager myself, so I know that the next one was the avoider. Seven or 80% of people, the avoider. That one didn't surprise me because a lot of people are trying to figure out how to work in this hybrid world. So the avoider is someone who might not be there physically for their people, they avoid them that way, or they might not give them information or feedback. And I do think that a lot of bosses, in their defense, aren't sure how to manage somebody when they're working remotely or when you're not in the office. At the same time, I'm hoping that one will get better.

Do you think on that particular one that's partly linked to management is probably a little bit easier in terms of. You go back to, we manage things, we lead people. The data, the projects are a little bit easier to manage. But when we get to being a boss and leading a human being, there's. There's personalities and there's different communication styles. And do you think that's just. Some people don't have the skills and therefore they're not comfortable, therefore they, they avoid that side of it. Is that what's going on, do you think?

See, this is how we came up with the traps, right? Because part of the problem with an avoider is if your boss is in meetings 24 7, if they're hardly ever out of meetings, you can't find them. So time is a big one. But just like you said there, there's also skill. If the boss doesn't know how to talk to you, if the boss doesn't understand why it's important to talk to you, then the boss won't be talking to you. And especially now that we're remote, everybody has to make the effort to reach out, to do that communication, make sure the channels are working in both directions.

And sorry as well. It strikes me that some of these must start to compound as well.

Right.

Almost like negative compound interest. Because if you've got some avoid attendances, then there's probably going to be some unappreciation going on there as well. So on the. The person being sort of led or managed by a particular bad boss almost gets a doubly bad experience, right?

Yeah. So one of the next ones is the ignorer. 78% and that's absolutely it. So if you're avoiding, if you can't see your boss because they're avoiding you, then they're ignoring you and they're not listening to you. So we talk about the domino effect.

It's incredibly perceptive, Ben, because if you're an avoider, people can't talk to you, which means you're potentially hoarding information so people can't find out the right answers.

To their questions, which is another bad boss type.

Another bad boss type. And so that the employees have to make decisions and often they'll be making the wrong decisions because they don't understand the full context. And if they make the wrong decisions and do the wrong things, then the boss has to come in as a firefighter to say, wait a minute, wait a minute, forget what I told you last week. We have to put out this fire. Let's solve this crisis. And it's an ever widening spiral, if you see what I mean. That's really perceptive. Thank you for bringing that up.

So what's the difference, just to be clear, between the avoider and the ignorer?

The avoider, you can't find, they're like a ghost. They disappear often in the morning and you just don't see them. Right. The ignorer is like a guy with Headphones. I realize the irony, seeing is how I'm a guy with headphones right now, but, yeah, it's a guy with headphones. You stand behind him and you're talking to him, and you're like, well, you know, I need this and I need that, and. And he's just going, yeah, yeah, whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, sure, whatever.

Okay, got you.

Or you're presenting an idea and nobody's listening to you, or you're saying, you know, this coming into the office three days a week isn't working for me. Can we change it? And they're just. Yeah, wearing. Wearing headphones. It was really fun. We had a good time writing the book, but I think we had just as much fun coming up with the emojis for the bad bosses, because we wanted ones that you could just look at and you knew exactly what it is. And you might think that 10 is a lot, but the conversation that we just had, I think shows that it's those little things, and you need to pick apart the little things. You need to see all the little things that you've done wrong. And just going back to what you guys were saying earlier, I think a lot of the problems are that. And it happened to me, you just get thrown into being a boss. You're an amazing individual contributor. You did such a good job on this project. You led this project. Bang. You're a boss. And nobody teaches us how to do these. These skills. And I know. We'll talk later about our model called the great boss building block model, but it intentionally has. We've broken it into behaviors, the things that you really need to learn to be a great boss, and then the action. So you can, you know, you can be a great communicator, which is a skill, but you need to have the behaviors behind it to do it right, or you're, you know, you're never going to get it right.

Yeah, that makes sense. So you've got this in the book. So a big first step. If we want to try and make sure we ourselves are a good boss, then there's an element of awareness. Right. We need to start to tune into what are some of our bad boss traits or tendencies that we've got. And from there, you mentioned your building blocks. So do you want to give us some of the. The headlines or an overview of some of the things that people can do to ensure they're on the right track? Obviously, one of which is grab a copy of the book, which we'll put the link in the show notes for Everybody.

But.

Yeah.

What are some of the things we can be doing to become the good boss that we would like to be and that our people deserve us to be?

Go ahead, Ken.

Go ahead, Deb.

We're both being nice.

No, no, you go first. You go first.

I'll do the purple ones, you do the blue ones. How's that? Okay, so there's. First of all, I apologize. There are 14 building blocks, which is a lot like I wrote a book on. On company values. And I said, don't have any more than four and five because no one's ever going to remember them. And then we have 14. But what we did writing the book is every time we'd write it, we'd say if it. If we haven't learned anything ourselves, because we interviewed 25 thought leaders. If we haven't learned anything or it's not things that are really going to help people, just turn it into a blog, take it out of the book. But we genuinely feel that they're all important. You don't have to do them all at the same time, so don't panic. But the. The six on the bottom, which are the foundational ones, or since there's six, we call them the six pack because they're the ones that sort of hold. You hold the others up, and it's the behaviors. And these are things that I think we've all learned over the last couple of years are so, so important. Things like as a boss, having empathy and compassion to your people, you know, like, so you can communicate really well, but if you don't do it in an empathetic, compassionate way, it's never going to work. Being authentic and vulnerable, you know, that's why I share these stories. People learn so much better by showing people the real you. And as a boss, you need to do it. And then certainly not. Last but not least, respect and trust it all. You know, you can never have a good relationship without trust and respect. So those are the six pack and the foundational ones.

The other eight are the supporting blocks. Now they're in couples here. So empowerment and inspiration are two sides of exciting people about the job that they're doing. Making sure that they have agency and then leading them towards the challenge. Development and coaching. And the way that we define those is that development is the formal development within the career progression of the organization. And coaching is more about what are your personal goals and let's talk about how to meet them, how to meet challenges that arise during the course of the day. Feedback and appreciation. You have to Be able to give feedback both constructive and positive. But it has to be, you know, you have to be able to do feedback to be an effective manager. But you also have to be able to appreciate things, appreciate the, the efforts that people take. And it's not just a touchy feely, it's. It's an actual genuine return on investment that a business gets for doing this. It increases productivity, it increases engagement, it decreases stress and burnout. I mean, this is fundamental things that almost any CEO would pay big money for that you get for free just for saying thank you. And then the last couple is listening and communication, both key skills for a leader to have. If you can't listen, you can't understand what's going on. And if you can't communicate all of the other building blocks, you're just not going to go anywhere.

You know, it's so funny, I always call them pairs. I love that you called them a couple because the book was written by a couple and our building blocks are couples. I never thought of that before. There you go, Ben. You're having all these light bulb moments.

Happy to be of service.

Free counseling.

I did want to mention, yes, there are 14 of these and there's 10 kind of bad boss types. And it all sounds terribly intimidating and oh my God. We have a free tool on our website, badbossesruinlives.com you can go to the tool, you enter your answers to the questions about your style of management, of leadership, of how you behave on a regular basis. And at the very end it says, well, these two or three bad boss types might be the types you need to be thinking about. And on the next screen beyond that, these are the building blocks that might be most beneficial for you to consider so you don't have to think of 24 things and go, oh my God, run through our tool and you'll find the top bad boss type or two and the top two or three building blocks to consider. And it simplifies things quite a bit.

Yeah, and I really appreciate the fact that in the book and listening to you talk about them, you refer to them as foundational blocks and building blocks because I really do think it's probably, especially these days, we can massively over complicate leadership and it doesn't need to be right. We can so easily go down a rabbit warren of the latest concepts from psychology or kind of neuroscience says this and like our mind can be so easily overloaded. We're actually, there's just some very fundamental basic things that if we do those Right. Are going to have a, a dramatic impact and I think you've nailed it with the things you've laid out. One of the bits of research I found recently around Feedback in particular, seen as you mentioned it there, Ken, was from a Gallup survey which was only 26% of people believe the feedback they get from their boss actually enables them to perform better in their work or what they're being asked to do. And I don't know about you, but whenever I hear a statistic, I love to flip it around and say, well, what's the other side of that? Which is wow. So 84% of people effectively are going to work feeling that the feedback they're getting from their boss is having, excuse my language, bugger all impact on their performance. It's just mind blowing really.

If I followed with those numbers, it might be 74% but that's still three quarters.

Oh, yeah, sorry, my math is terrible.

Three, three. Three out of four people are not being given the very bare basics that they need to actually do their job better and to improve. Yeah, it's no wonder that something like 60% of people are currently, right this second looking for new work. That's not the ones who are thinking about it, that's the ones who are looking for a new job actively. I just sparkles the mind.

Well, the good news is the chapter on Feedback. We interviewed the amazing Kim Scott who wrote the book Radical Candor. And the reason I wanted to interview her is that her approach to Feedback completely changed my life. Like if, if you don't read her book, Google it, look at her three minute video. I mean, it's just, it will change the way you think about Feedback. Because, you know, I just think that when it comes to feedback, when I teach feedback courses, everyone in the room just looks at me like, I hate giving feedback. Why do I have to do it?

Yeah.

And then if you, if you listen to Kim Scott, you understand why you have to do it. Like when I teach a class on, on Feedback, I show a picture of, of me and the person's head is half cut off because I'm like five feet tall and the photographer was taking pictures and cut the guy's head off. And my point was, should I tell this guy that he cut the person's head off? Am I going to grow by tomorrow when he takes my picture next time? So yeah, we definitely have to do that while I have the floor. Just one more thing I wanted to say is I think the biggest change I would like out of this book, whether people remember the 10 types of bad bosses. 14 building blocks is. And you were saying this, Ben, I think too often we just throw people into training classes, just assuming, you know, you're bad at this. Everyone's going to go take this class. And if we don't first figure out what are the things that we personally are doing wrong, the same way we have to figure out what our people need, we need to figure out where are our areas of weakness. So, like, I'm an absolute micromanager. Ken is not a micromanager. He doesn't need to spend a whole week in a micromanager course. Whereas I won't pick on what you are, Ken. But do you know what I mean? To me, I think that needs to be the biggest change. We need to stop just having a generic approach to developing managers and leaders. And it needs to be more individualized because we're all individuals.

Yeah, I love that, Deborah. And actually, I think one of the things, big things, I took away from the book, probably because it very much resonates with my own sort of beliefs around leadership as well, but it links to something you said early on in this conversation, Ken, where, if you think about it, when we are in a particular job, maybe working for a particularly bad boss during that. That period, we'll actually spend more of our waking hours with that bad boss than we would do with our significant other or closest friend or family member. So whether we're a good boss or a bad boss, we really do have a big impact on people's lives, Right? And that doesn't just affect them whilst they're at work, it affects them when they're at home, beyond the time when they work for us. But it spills over and affects their loved ones, right? So, Ken, if you were working for a particularly bad narcissistic boss or whatever, that's not just going to affect you at home, that's going to spill over and affect kind of you at home as well, Deborah. So that's why I'm. I love the book and we're so keen to talk to you about it, because bad bosses can ruin lives, right?

It has a ripple effect the story, and I'm not going to do it all, but the one I started before is the reason I realized how much it was impacting my life, is that I thought that I could come home, say hi to the kids and Ken, say hi to the dogs, and then just go walk around the block, calm myself down. All the things that we learn about mindfulness and then walk in the door and be fine. It was not happening. They saw right through it. It made it tense for everyone, it made it difficult for everyone. And I heard this from so many.

People who mentioned to you, Deborah, that you had a problem. It wasn't me.

No. It was my 10 year old daughter who chased after me and saw me crying, trying to calm down. And I love kids. She goes, mom, why don't you just quit? I'm doing it for you. I'm working my butt off to take care of all of you. And then she goes, yeah, you should just leave.

Kids are packed full of wisdom sometimes. They really are. Yeah. Deborah Kent, final question. I think if we flip it round slightly, what are the two or three best bits of advice you would perhaps give to someone who right now is really struggling because they find themselves working for a particular, particular bad boss? Any, any advice in that situation?

The first thing I would say is even though it's an imbalanced relationship, working at a company is a relationship. You have a relationship with your line manager and you can't pin it all on the evil boss. Yes, maybe the evil boss is completely getting it wrong, but as an employee, there are some things that you can sometimes do which will ameliorate the situation. If the boss is a micromanager, maybe, possibly, perhaps. And sometimes you could hear all the qualification qualifiers here, right? Sometimes you can over prepare, you can overdo and you can be. So as soon as they ask a question, there's the answer right there. I've got it written down, I put it on the wall and it's folded and put it on your desk, it's right there. And pretty soon, well, hopefully pretty soon that manager will realize they can back off a little bit because you're prepared, you're on it. So there's that ownership aspect that's really kind of important. But I would also caution to balance that it's really easy, especially now where we're all stressed, we're all worried about the job market, we're all worried about trying to make ends meet. It's really easy for us just to give 110% more than we can afford to give. And you know, if you, if you give every waking moment to the company, what else are you taking that time away from? Are you taking it away from sleep? Are you taking it away from your family? Are you taking it away from 100 other things that would recharge you? If you give 100% of yourself to the company that you're doing yourself and all of your other relationships active harm so no matter how much a company wants you to give 100%, I would caution anybody listening, think twice about that. Give as much as you can. Sure, why not? We all want to feel like we're doing a good job, but save a little bit for yourself so you don't burn yourself out.

I'm going to add another one, quoting another famous book, Simon Sinek. Start with why. And it goes back to what Ken was saying about a relationship. If I think back to the situations where, you know, I've had a bad boss or I might have done things wrong, it was understanding why they were doing it. So my story that I told you before, years later, I found out why it was happening. You know, I didn't realize the pressure that my boss was getting in the boardroom and the challenges that my boss was getting. And in hindsight, you know, it's easier to look back. If I had had those conversations and explained, you know, had the question, you know, like, why are you micromanaging me? Why are you hoarding why? And just not, like, defensively, but just try to understand it from their perspective. Because, you know, similar to my first story, they might not have known that they were doing it, or there might be a reason why, and they don't know the impact they're having on us. So I think if we can take that responsibility, give it a try, and then if it's still, as Ken said, ruining your life, step away from it. But I encourage you to at least give it a try. If anything, it tells you what your boss is like, what kind of person they are.

Yeah, I love both of those points you've shared there. And I think it links back to the building blocks. Right. Especially the empathy and compassion piece. I mean, this scenario crops up quite a lot when I'm coaching senior leaders, and quite often, no, surprisingly, because 99.6% of people have a bad boss. But people say to me, ben, I just can't cope with my boss. I just don't know how to deal with my boss. It's horrendous. Working with them kind of help me. And one of the starting points for me is always to get them to try and step into their boss's shoes. Like, what's going on for them? What are their work pressures? Like, do you know what's going on for them out of work, maybe? Like, what is it that's driving their behavior? Because to your point, Ken, very few of us come to work and say, I want to be a really shitty boss today. Like, we don't do it. There's something that is driving our behavior. You can have that little bit of empathy. Even when we're frustrated by somebody, we can take personal responsibility for trying to do all we can to change the situation, can't we? Rather than just pointing the finger at them saying they've got to change. It's all them. It's lovely how it brings us full circle.

I think it's a really good point because, and as we said, we want to do the flip side book, because all of those building blocks doesn't matter if you're a boss or an employee. We all have to live them. They're all important. They both go both ways.

Ken, Deborah, thank you so much for coming on the show today. Great book. I really, really enjoyed reading it. And I'm sure we could have kept talking for another hour at least because just in what you shared already, there's so many, I think, tips and tricks and things that people can take away to help them be an even better boss. But also, as we were just saying at the end there, help us cope and respond better if we've got a, let's say, less than optimal boss ourselves. And actually the thing I really like and appreciate is how it just puts the emphasis back on just doing some of those fundamental foundational things and using the building blocks that really kind of enable us to be the sort of boss that we would probably love to be and the boss that our people deserve to have. So thanks for your time today and for writing the book.