On Leadership: Abusing the Perks

This is the second of my "On Leadership" posts.

I had the great misfortune to work for a bad supervisor at one point in my career. This person, who I will call Lisa, was one of those supervisors who loved the perks of leadership but never embraced its responsibilities.

Are You Here?

Lisa had strict rules for how her team should operate. Each quarter, she asked us to give her a work schedule. For example, someone might say they needed to leave early on Wednesdays for a class. In their schedule, that person might account for leaving early by coming in early on Wednesdays or working extra time on Tuesdays and Thursdays. While Lisa would initially approve that request, she invariably complained when the person left each Wednesday for that class. She always asked if they had actually completed their work, complained about her generosity being abused and asked if they really actually needed the class.

Lisa also regularly had the IT department run reports on her staff’s computer activity. This was to verify that each person actually logged onto the system each morning when they said they would start work. She also used the reports to verify that no one clocked out too early. Lisa needed these reports because she was never in the office before 10:00 am. And, she frequently left the office for the day between 2:00 and 4:00, long before anyone else on the team. Lisa’s lunch breaks were typically two or more hours in length, often spent at a nearby bar where she drank her lunch and chatted up our division’s vice president, who was also her immediate supervisor.

Rest and Relaxation

In addition to her scheduling requirements, Lisa also had strict policies about when people could take vacation and how they must prepare before leaving the office. Her staff had to give lengthy lead times for vacation requests and Lisa reserved the right to cancel those requests, even if she had initially approved them, if the person didn’t have their desk clear before leaving. People worked many long hours in the week before their vacations, billing projects that were due to finish while they were away or shipping equipment on projects that wouldn’t actually begin until after their returns, just to be sure Lisa didn’t cancel their vacation requests at the last minute. Each person also had to pick a backup from the team and brief that individual on all the projects in progress, in case the backup needed to answer a call about the job.

However, the vacation rules that her team had to follow never applied to Lisa. She spent the week before her trip using her work computer to book excursions, dinner reservations and spa treatments. She would order new outfits for the trip, having the packages shipped to the office. She also spent a lot of time on the phone talking with her traveling companions and verifying that their plans were in place.

The night before her trip, she stayed late in the office, identifying jobs that would complete while she was gone or projects that she should have started before leaving. All these projects would be dumped on someone’s desk, often without warning. Lisa usually left the hapless person a voicemail or an email, telling her or him that Lisa was having all calls forwarded to that person in her absence. She asked them to start those late projects and bill out the ones that were to complete. Then, she merrily headed off on vacation, leaving at least one member of her team swamped with ill-managed projects.

Monkey See, Monkey Do

Lisa was, by any definition, a poor leader. Like so many supervisors and employers, she had one set of standards that she followed while her staff had to obey a different, stricter policy. Unfortunately, in that particular company, Lisa’s behavior was far too common. Lisa’s immediate supervisor, the division vice president, behaved in an identical manner. Since Lisa’s supervisor modeled a version of leadership that emphasized the leader’s perks, Lisa learned that supervisors didn’t have to follow the rules they enforced.

Attempts to complain to Lisa’s supervisor about her poor leadership fell on deaf ears. Since the vice president behaved in an identical manner, the reaction was, “We’re bosses and we get to do things you can’t. Deal with it.” Sadly, the company’s HR department was powerless to do anything about the supervisors and their double standards. When the HR director was approached about the problem, her reaction was, “Yes, I know they do that. And yes, it’s a terrible way to behave, causing resentment and damaging team morale. But, they have connections and we can’t do anything about it.”

Lots of Sand in the Machine

The company that allowed this behavior went through a number of ownership changes in a seven-year period. The firm was bought by a larger company, then spun back off into a small, independent company. It merged with a top competitor and eventually merged with an even larger competitor. Throughout all these changes, the company culture stayed the same. The supervisors were allowed to do whatever they pleased while their staffs had to comply with increasingly strict rules. The supervisors were given more pay and new perks while their staffs lost benefits, saw salaries reduced and watched key colleagues laid off. The staffs worked longer hours for less while the supervisors worked fewer hours for more. And yet, none of the top executives ever questioned how these practices factored into company morale, their declining profits and their clientele losses.