BOSS AND ANDROCLES – MANAGING A RELATIONSHIP CONFLICT

The story of “Androcles and the Lion” was one of my favorite stories during the childhood days. This folk story goes like this:

“Androcles was a slave in a Roman country where the King was oppressive. Driven by the high-handed attitude of the king and his intense techniques of torture, Androcles escapes to a nearby jungle where he hides himelf in a cave. He finds inside the cave a wounded lion having an injury in its paw. Androcles understands the pain of the lion and nurses him to recover and get back to life. The relationship between the lion and Androcles becomes very cordial.

Later, when Androcles is identified and captured by the soldiers of the Kingdom, he is brought back to the King who orders that he be exposed to a hungry lion in an open theatre and in the presence of the people so that they know what punishment a slave would get if he escapes. The hungry lion, when encounters the slave, finds him to be the old friend who nursed him and instead of attacking hugs him.”

Boss is neither a Roman king, nor the employee Mr. Androcles.

An oppressive boss is indeed a negative asset to an organization.

A boss has basically some goals to achieve:

-     To show results

-     To achieve targets

-     To lead a team

-     To mentor growth and performance

-     To sustain discipline and organized behavior

All this need to be built with and through a team which must be nurtured and nursed, when necessary. An oppressive attitude to bring about the listed goals creates tension, stress, fear, contempt and loss of self-esteem to the members of the team who work with the boss. Instead of scaffolding good performance it acts as a powerful speed-break. It makes the employees adopt escapist attitudes – not necessarily from the work, but from any personal interactions with the boss.

Results are important to the company. Targets only help the company to grow and perform. Pushing the deliveries to enhance growth shows the power of life in the company. But… oftentimes, even excellent performers are unable to deliver for reasons beyond one’s control.

“I understand his problem” said a market leader to an employee’s colleague “He is into divorce and hence is having stress and unhappy family time. But then, how does it affect me? He is paid for results. He is paid for targets. He is paid for performance. There was no commitment for the company to deal with such issues when he was appointed. Why should the company worry about his personal life?”

The human touch of both the boss and the company is very important to establish a respectful and compassionate relationship between the “boss and his team member”. Life is more important and to be celebrated than schedules and short term targets/ achievements. Yes, sometimes small ‘misses’ in the performances of a few may create a large ‘market gap’ which needs to be avoided. But, the boss, must understand and take other appropriate measures to deal with the situation rather than bringing his “Androcles” to an open theatre to defend himself before an audience! (This is what mostly happens!)

Emotional Intelligence of a boss is very important in relationship management. Throwing tantrums, vulgar display of anger, shabby bodily expressions, negative verbal expressions are often expressions of poor managerial skills. Firmness to issues, concepts do not call for rude behavioral patterns. Every issue must be viewed in its own context, rather than tracing the history of the work profile of the employee every time!

A team-lead told two of his friends before entering the cabin of the boss ‘to be ready for some fireworks’ – not because there were real issues, but because the team-lead had a relationship conflict with the boss, and the boss could not take it directly on him and hence found other ways of communicating his anger. It is important to differentiate between issues and people. Conflicts over issues should not subsume people who are in the zone of conflict.

I recall how a lady who decorated a chair in a legislative capacity used to throw tempers as well as files in meetings and ‘single out’ people in every meeting in a large gathering for very trivial reasons. She, possibly, believed scaring people with rude and impolite behavior was an expression of authority. Unfortunately, she commanded poor respect outside the room!

In his first meeting with the team, the CEO of a company remarked “Well, those who are willing to perform and be a part of my team can sit here. And for others, the doors are open.” One could find a huge gap between his intent and his communication. Surely, the company which was scaling heights, lost the cream of performers!

In open and aggressive assaults over non-performance or sluggish work culture, and many times even in a ‘built-up’ pressure to push performance levels, insults are often “swallowed” by Mr. Androcles but it doesn’t get “digested.” Personal interventions and corrections to work profiles of the team members must be done on individual basis, appreciating the strengths and weakness of each of them. “Learning time” is sometimes important for change in performance patterns and it may vary for everyone. Time and space are two crucial factors that nurture a good relationship

.

“Learned Helplessness” is a common psychological challenge to change and performance. It is the outcome of years of conditioning or growth patterns in each psychological geography. Boss needs to understand the limitations of the learning profile and the performance profile and nurture the strengths rather than blow out the weakness. The roadblocks that cause the ‘learned helplessness’ needs to be identified and the employee helped to overcome those psychological barriers. However, in the entire game, it must be ensured that the employee’s value profile and ethics is not debatable.

Finally, the boss is as much an employee of the organization as his subordinate, except that the functional profiles are different. There is every chance that he is profiled as Mr. Androcles in another open theater!

It is important for HR to deliver the message to the organizational leaders that “Neither the boss is the Roman King, nor the employee is Mr. Androcles.” That would help improving the health profile of the organization.