Understanding your Danish boss: Less like a general, more like a sports coach

Hello and welcome to the How to Live in Denmark podcast. I'm Kay Xander Mellish. Today's podcast is about understanding your Danish boss. In an anti-authoritarian country like Denmark, being a boss is a precarious social position. Danish bosses don't like to flaunt their authority. In fact, when you enter a room full of Danes, it is often difficult to tell which one is the boss. The social cues that point to a big cheese in other cultures— the flashy watch, the oversized office, the glamorous yet servile executive assistant— are considered poor taste in egalitarian Denmark. So are the booming, take-charge personalities that many foreigners expect from a boss. Denmark is a flat country. It's flat geographically, and you're expected to keep a flat temperament and vocal tone at all times. And as they love to tell you, Danish companies have a relatively flat management structure. That means fewer layers of people to keep an eye on you, which can be a refreshing thing, but also fewer people around to help if you're going off the rails entirely. Trying to figure out their Danish boss can be difficult for foreigners. If your culture is full of strong leaders who drive their teams forward with military bluster and precision, you may find your Danish boss passive and even difficult to respect. A Danish boss is less like an army general and more like a sports coach. She outlines how important it is to win the game, brings in people she believes have the right qualification, and gives them the outline of what she wants done. Then she sets them loose on the playing field to go do their jobs. Not trusting employees to get the work done on their own is seen as an insult in Denmark. I saw an example of this at one of my very first corporate jobs in Denmark, working as a Danish-English translator at a very large bank. One day our department head asked us to kindly let her know when we were going out to lunch and when we returned, so she could allocate resources and make sure there was coverage in case of urgent assignments. Now, this seemed reasonable to me, but my fellow translators who were Danish, they were furious. They held a secret lunchtime meeting to discuss what they thought was an outrageous suggestion. They were not schoolchildren or factory workers, they told each other. They were professionals, and as long as they got their work done promptly and correctly, there was no reason to monitor when they were in the office and when they weren't. The boss backed down. And because in Denmark the workers' needs are often given more consideration than the customers' needs, Any urgent translations would have to wait until the translators got back from lunch, or the boss could do them herself. In general, your Danish boss won't monitor how much time you spend in the office. In fact, if you spend too much time there, she may worry that you can't handle your job. Aside from special peak periods, the general Danish attitude is that any job worth doing should be doable in the official work week of 37.5 hours. There are no real prizes for working beyond that. That said, when you are at work, you're expected to give your full focus to the job and to deliver exactly what you said you would deliver at precisely the time you promised to deliver it. Delays and excuses are toxic in Danish business life, particularly when they arrive at the last minute. They wreak havoc with the quality and competence that every Danish company likes to project. If you're having trouble with an assignment and don't think you'll be able to deliver on time, let your boss know as soon as problems begin to arise. That way she can make plans to get you some backup or maybe move around some deadlines. Revealing at the last minute that an assignment won't be ready on time is a recipe for a very angry Danish boss. Now, what happens when your Danish boss is angry? It's a flat country. You're expected to keep a flat temperament and a flat vocal tone. Anger is a slightly forbidden emotion. Like sexuality in conservative countries, it's expected to be expressed in private. What this means is that if your boss is angry at you, she'll probably call you to a conference room and have a chat with you one-on-one. This one-on-one chat with your boss is where things can go wrong. Danish is a non-confrontational language, reflecting a non-confrontational culture. But your boss probably won't be speaking Danish to you, which means she'll no longer have access to all the respectful and softening phrases built into the Danish language. Instead, she'll be trying to express an uncomfortable emotion— anger— in a second language— English. The wording can come out as too direct, harsh, and even rude. Anyway, confrontations like these are when many foreigners decide they don't like their Danish bosses, or that their Danish boss is stubborn and inflexible. Keep in mind that it's difficult for the Danes to reprimand people because that's not equal. It makes the boss an authority figure, and this is an anti-authoritarian culture. So spare a little sympathy for your Danish boss's awkward situation and embarrassment at having to be the higher-up and the, the bad guy. If you did fail to live up to expectations, admit that and work towards a solution. In Danish culture, making a mistake is not considered shameful. Refusing to admit your mistake is. When your boss is happy. Since doing your job well is the presumed default in Danish companies, your boss may not say all that much when she's happy with your work. Celebrating success is not a core skill in Denmark. This could be a little disconcerting for foreigners, particularly Americans, who are raised on a diet of constant applause, you know, aimed at boosting their self-esteem. In Denmark, you may not get any indication you're doing well until your annual employee evaluation, which is standard in most corporate jobs. At that point, your boss will be forced to fill out a lot of forms about your performance, and you'll find out that you're doing just fine. But otherwise, generally, no news is good news. If you feel you need feedback or have something on your mind you want to talk about, most Danish bosses have an open-door policy. You can just drop in her office for a chat or schedule 15 minutes at the end of the day to ask, how am I doing? In general, there's not much reason to be afraid of the boss in Denmark. She or he will often sit with you at the company canteen at lunchtime or share a beer with the staff after work on Friday or even, you know, shake their booty with you at the company Christmas party. Your boss wants to see herself as part of the team. Clearly, she's that part of the team that organizes and supervises and evaluates and makes the most money, but just part of the team. Equal, just like everyone else. And that's the How to Live in Denmark podcast. How to Work in Denmark, the book, is coming soon, but you can buy my 2 existing books now: How to Live in Denmark and Top 35 Mistakes Danes Make in English. They're available on Amazon, Saxo.com, Google Play, iBooks, or at many of the bookshops in the Copenhagen area. Come leave a comment on Facebook or follow us on Twitter at How to Live in DK. See you next time!