Yesterday the we (the social committee at work) ran our final event for the year. Now that it's over, I feel like a huge weight has been lifted from me. I've learnt a lot about myself this year, but other than that, I think being on the social committee has been overall pretty crappy.
If my life were an epic, I think I'd be categorised as a reluctant hero. I didn't want to become treasurer of the social committee, and only ran for the position because of peer pressure. My election speech was the cliched, "Don't vote for me". I won anyway, because the other two candidates dropped out of the race. Considering the previous treasurer was Person (and for those new to the blog, Person is the code name for someone), the financial records were pretty much non-existant. His excuse was that nobody looks at them anyway - which is probably true, at least until this year, when the person who became chair of the committee turned out to be an accountant.
I realised one of the members was basically keeping her own petty cash of the committee's money and was always really vague when I asked her what the money was being spent on. Things really weren't adding up, as according to the representatives who were handing money to her, we should have been making a profit, but according to her, we were pretty much breaking even. Since no records were being kept, I couldn't really accuse her of stealing, so I asked her to spend the rest of the cash on stock, and told her I'd be handling the stock acquisition from now on. Since then, we've been consistently earning over $500 each month. She dropped out of the social committee shortly after.
There were a bunch of other things that I ended up doing throughout the year, and if I were to estimate the number of unpaid hours I've put into the social committee, it'd probably be around 100-200. Why would I do that to myself?
The other thing that I learnt about myself this year is that my leadership style is that of someone who leads by example. I try my best not to ask someone to do something that I wouldn't do myself (with the exception of people who do things that I can't, e.g. plumber), and so if I want to ask people to put in extra time to do a task, I would do that myself to show that I am willing to do it, too. I prefer this style because it's important to me that the people I am leading respect me, and that I am not being unfair. However, I've found this style is pretty ineffective unless you have a team of people who actually care about you. Otherwise, what really ends up happening is that people start to see you as the person who gets things done, and not even in a good way, you become the person they turn to when they don't have the time/can't be bothered doing their allocated task - because they know that you'll find a way to get it done. You become the person who, at an hour before an event is to start, gets pinged with 5 messages, "Anna, I'm sorry to do this to you at the last moment, but...."
Lately, I've been trying to observe other leaders at work, and I really haven't seen anyone who is really effective as a leader.
Boss A is super nice, but I can see that he is pretty lenient with his team. It works out well, because they are all fairly self-disciplined, wouldn't abuse his trust, and enjoy the autonomy. I just feel like if it were any other team, they'd be walking all over him. One of the things I've noticed about him is that he doesn't act like he's above his team. He enjoys spending time with the rest of his team outside of work, and they all joke around with each other and make fun of each other. I could see myself becoming this kind of boss, except I know it'd end up a repeat of the social committee mess.
Boss B is nice on the surface, but you really get the impression that he couldn't care less if you were hit by a train on the way to work - except for the fact that it'd be a minor annoyance to him because the project you're working on might be delayed by a week while they find someone to replace you. Everyone smiles when he's around, but the moment he's gone, the truth comes out - they hate him. Whenever something happens that makes him look bad, he won't hesitate to blame downwards. Whenever something happens that makes him look good, he won't hesitate to broadcast it upwards. People have actually quit because they can't stand working for him. He doesn't spend time with the team outside of work - and they prefer it that way. It's not always bad, because people like this tend to move on to bigger and better things, but once they've reached the upper limit of their ass-kissing, whichever team they get stuck with ends up in a living hell. This type of boss is a huge no for me.
Boss C is well-liked by his team. He knows things about them and they feel comfortable confiding in him. He gets things done, but he doesn't constantly monitor his underlings to make sure they're working as hard as possible. He's also well-liked outside of his area, and I get the impression that he is really altruistic. When he met me he went really out of his way to offer me advice and guidance - despite the fact that we barely knew each other. However, sometimes I wonder if he even has a life outside of work. He does his job well, but he doesn't seem to do anything else. Plus, he seems a little too good to be true and I wonder if there's a sinister side to him that I just haven't seen. He doesn't feel like he's part of the team though, there is definitely a barrier there.
Personally, I'd like to be somewhere between A and C. I don't see myself being a B at all, and I also can't justify spending hours of my life outside of work doing work which seems to be a requirement for C. I did it this year, and MrMan5.5 really suffered for it. I was constantly coming home grumpy or tired and usually wanting to play a game or two of DotA to relieve stress then collapse into bed. Our meals have been pretty poor as neither of us really has the time to cook, though MrMan5.5 at least tries, I'd given up hope this year. I definitely can't imagine doing that and trying to raise a baby at the same time.
