What Does Your Boss Want From You?

The list may well include productivity, consistency, reliability, high quality work, quickness, honour (deference), and ..... right at the end, loyalty. Honestly, he would get a canine or bowwow if loyalty is the name of the game.

And, if your boss happens to be a legendary Superboss in the likes of George Lucas, Mary Kay Ash, Larry Ellison and Ralph Lauren, what would he or she want from you?

Photo credits: matthewssteer.com.au

Based on his reviews of numerous articles and books as well as more than 200 interviews conducted, Sydney Finkelstein surmised that Superbosses value these 3 attributes the most:

a) Intelligence;b) Creativity; and c) Flexibility.

Daily Refreshing would say that Intelligence encompasses Emotional Intelligence, Emotional Agility and other soft skills such as the ability to lead, communicate, suss out the truth, ask incisive questions, organise, delegate and supervise.

Creativity would entail being a thought leader and innovator who expands his vistas and extends his horizon to do things with a fresh and invigorating perspective and give birth to new products or services.

Flexibility or agility is now in vogue for business folks with catchphrase such as "Adapt or perish". George Bernard Shaw has well noted that: "Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” Albert Einstein went even further to state that: "The measure of intelligence is the ability to change."

In case you are wondering whether you have the privilege of working for a Superboss (and become one yourself someday, if you learn to survive under their tutelage), Finkelstein have grouped them into 3 types for you to identity as follows:

A) Glorious Bastards 

- Care only about winning; ultimate hard drivers.

B) Nurturers

- Bring others along and care deeply about their success.

C) Iconoclasts (think "Icon")

- Inspires with their single-minded passion in their creative fields.

The power of change in your own hands. It is not your bosses' job to change you, especially when you are resistant to change or seek to get off the hook by spouting that you do not wish to change for the sake of change.

Renew your mind, and change for the better. Your best is yet to be. It's all up to you.

"The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn and change." -- Carl Rogers

"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek." -- Barack Obama

Sydney Finkelstein is the Steven Roth Professor of Management at Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business and the author of Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master The Flow of Talent (Portfolio/Penguin, 2016)

Bibliography:

pages 104 to 107, Harvard Business Review (January - February 2016)