Exploring the Pretender boss

Everything’s fine, you’re doing a great job! Don’t worry, you’re completely on track to delivering what we need. Have you ever heard messages like this from your boss (or said this to your people), only to find out (or mean) that none of it was true??

In our book Bad Bosses Ruin Lives: The Building Blocks for Being a Great Boss, we define this type of boss as a Pretender. We explain them as withholding the truth and any discomfort it could cause others in an attempt to please and be nice to them, giving answers they feel are wanted, and failing to give their listeners the honesty they need and deserve.?

The emoji for the Pretender boss is one holding a mask. This was done to make the point that these kinds of bosses often have such a strong desire to be liked that they put on a mask for their team and for their own bosses so no one knows there's an issue and offer too much “sweetness” in the form of sugarcoating every little thing.

This is an interesting type of bad boss. In fact, from the research we conducted for our book, it was the one that bosses admitted to being the most (47% said they've been a Pretender). We think it's because often it's easier just to pretend to your people that things are OK, that they're doing OK. But as we’ll show in the stories below, there are indeed consequences of these behaviors and actions.

Situations

Here are two situations which illustrate and showcase some of the problems a Pretender boss can cause:

Situation #1

I once had a manager who was a die-hard people pleaser. They'd promise anything to their boss, no matter how outlandish. They’d promise sales features that weren't ready. They’d tell other departments we'd cover their work. They’d agree to deadlines we couldn't possibly hit. They’d give "All OK" status updates to their boss and then come back asking us to do overtime to catch up. They'd delay giving us bad news as long as they could.

When we spoke to them about it, they’d smile and agree that we needed to change how we worked . . . . but of course, nothing would change! The bottom line is that they simply couldn't face difficult conversations and conflict, and would do anything and everything to delay giving us bad news. The impact and effects were that it was exhausting, we made mistakes that could have been prevented, work often needed to be redone, it was hard to learn, and we absolutely didn’t trust them.?

Situation #2

This next story comes from Kim Scott’s book titled Radical Candor:?

Bob joined Kim’s team with glowing references, an amazing career at two of the world’s greatest technology companies, and a quirky, charming personality. There was just one problem: Bob’s work was terrible. After a few weeks of working diligently, he finally made a presentation that was essentially a “jargon salad.” His slides were riddled with sloppy mistakes – whole sections were cut and pasted, and he hadn’t even bothered to make the fonts consistent.

Kim didn’t say a word to him after he showed it to her because she was so mad she was afraid she might say something “mean.” So she procrastinated for 10 months. It got so bad that his poor work cost the company money, and they then had to raise more money, diluting everyone’s stock and bringing them one big step closer to failure. And to make it even worse, several of her best employees said they’d quit if Kim didn’t fire Bob.

“A boss’s job is not to win popularity contests. A boss’s job is to point out to people as clearly and with as many specifics as possible when they are doing a bad job, AND when they are really doing a good job.” — Kim Scott, CEO of Candor, author of Radical Candor and Just Work.

Solutions

Do any of these situations sound familiar? Have you done this unintentionally to a member of your team, or has this happened to you? To help in these situations, let us share some solutions and some ways to overcome the Pretender's bad boss traits, referencing two of the building blocks from our Great Boss Building Block Model: Authenticity and Feedback.

Building Block - Authenticity

Authenticity is about being truthful - truthful about who you are, what you believe in, and finally, truthful to your people. For the Pretender, we’d like to focus on this final part, using this building block to help you be authentic by sharing the truth with them in an open and transparent way. Going back to the first situation, had the boss been more authentic, sharing the truth with their people, business partners, and their own boss, things would not have gotten so bad for all those involved.

This concept and focus on transparency have become more important over the years as the world and information have become more visible. Because of this, hiding behind a mask is often no longer possible, as the ‘truth,’ right or wrong, often appears in a split second through internal or external social challenges.?

Here are two tips to help you take off the mask and be more authentic:

1. Default to transparency - Too often, we automatically conclude that we need to withhold information from our people, believing there’s no way we can share all of it. It’s time to flip this on its head and start with the mindset of sharing everything, defaulting to transparency, and then only withholding something if we have a really good reason for doing so. For example, if you realize your team will miss a deadline, let your stakeholders know. Don’t pretend the problem will miraculously disappear, setting everyone up for failure.
2. Don’t dress up the truth - Once you take off the mask and authentically and truthfully share with your people, it’s equally important to consider how you do it. For example, if you have something bad to share, just say it. Don’t make it sound all sunshine-and-roses when it isn’t. Your people deserve the truth, they need the truth, even when it’s shitty truth! For example, if your company is struggling and considering layoffs, be truthful with your people about the situation. This will not only prevent them from creating their own version of truth (which is often far worse), but it will also remove the distractions and fear of uncertainty.?

Building Block - Feedback

Another form of sharing the truth comes from the Feedback building block, which is equally important. Our book explains that without feedback, your people are on a sailboat without a rudder. If you’ve never sailed before, the rudder is what you use to steer the boat, helping you change direction and stay on course. Without it, your people go wherever the wind takes them, which can be in conflict with how you’re trying to achieve team goals. This second situation is a perfect example of how a lack of feedback got the employee and the entire organization off course.?

Regarding tips on how to take off the mask and give meaningful and effective feedback, I’m just going to give you one: Read Radical Candor by Kim Scott! I’ve read tons of books on feedback, but this one completely changed how I think about and give feedback.

I’ll leave it to Scott to explain the details in her book, but to give you an overview of it, her model has two axes. The first one is the “care personally” axis, or what Scott calls the “give a damn” axis. It’s where we show human kindness and compassion to one another, caring about each other in how we give feedback.

The second axis is the “challenge directly” axis, or what Scott calls the “willing to piss people off” axis. This is where we need to forget what our parents and teachers told us when they said, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all,” because this doesn’t work in feedback, as it’s our responsibility and obligation to say the truth and to challenge directly.

Let us end by encouraging you not to let your fears of confrontation and uncomfortable conversations put you in this position of wearing a mask, of pretending. Remind yourself that it is not your job to please everyone, or to only deliver good news, or to make sure that everyone is happy. You’re not helping yourself, exhausting yourself on this positivity treadmill, and you’re not helping your people.?

Please contact us if you’d like to discuss having us do a talk or workshop on the topic of being a great boss. We’d love to help and support you!