Rate Your Boss

As a career contract engineer, I've been fortunate enough to work for a score or more of bosses. They've ranged from absolute incompetence to absolute brilliance. A few of the more memorable:

1) We showed up at the job-site one morning, and waited and waited... finally we went to the home office and found that he'd cleared out the office and high tailed to somewhere. He had been forging signatures on our permits for weeks.

2) Whenever we worked overtime, he would buy the few of us that stayed a 12-pack of beer and KFC. We worked well into the night for him and always got the job done. He was highly respected. Built like a moose, but spoke softly.

3) I was hired to replace another engineer while he went on 3 week vacation. The boss had him teach me the ropes before he left. When he came back he was told he'd been replaced... by me. A couple years later, while my boss was getting sued by SEARS for trying to screw SEARS, he also got investigated by the SEC for fraud. Company got liquidated a couple weeks later.

4) Worked a job about a year before cut-back required down-sizing. My contract was for two years. The new boss that just came in gave me a severance package that almost equaled the entire additional year that I would miss. He didn't have to. Three years later, I got re-hired to a higher position for another year. The company recovered with the new boss. Moral was much higher than it was under the old inept boss.

5) I was assistant to the project manager. We were working on a multi-million dollar project. The project manager was from Czechoslovakia, and was brilliant. Very large man, very intelligent and soft spoken. Highly respected. Half way thru project, he got hired by our customer because of his excellent reputation and great results from his team. I became project manager and ex-boss was my customer. We made alot of money on that project.

6) Had an administrator-type manager. Thought he was an engineer because he got hired as engineering manager. Extreme micro-manager. Finally one day he wouldn't take my advise on the NEMA Class of electrical enclosure I specified. We argued to the point of him buying the lower Class and making a big deal about it to the whole company, that he would prove me wrong. In front of whole company he weighted and submerged his enclosure in water overnight. Next morning he wanted to open it in front of everyone and show that it would be dry inside. It wasn't. It flooded. He got let go three days later.

7) I was Structural Dept Manager. My boss didn't know anything about structures, and admitted it. In fact I was only one in company that understood structural design. Old Timers in Production didn't like the improvements and cost reductions I was proposing. They wanted to keep doing it "the way they've always done it". My boss kept them off my back. He took a lot of heat for me. After a year our methods were updated with considerable savings for company. Everyone got large bonuses.

I could go on, but the trend that I see over the years is that those bosses that were most successful and respected, were that way because of personal character, integrity, honesty and fairness, more than anything else.

Those that failed, did so because of the lack of those very same traits. Technical knowledge was not so much of an issue. Those that lacked it and succeeded, succeeded because they knew their technical limitations. Those that lacked it and failed, failed because they were too insecure to listen to their team.

Integrity gains more respect, and gains more effort from subordinates than any amount of technical knowledge ever could. IMHO Integrity is the key to being a successful boss.

So far, out of the 3 companies Ive been to, my bosses were just like a big brother and a friend to me. Though sometimes there've been healthy arguments but most of the time, our office/department ended up like happy fun environment to be, though work is sometimes at max 7am to 10pm but we made it through quotas and expected accomplishments so far so good.

In my point of view:

A good engineering manager &/or supervisor is one in which is open to ideas, approachable, sincere and most importantly "understanding & appreciative" to its subordinate. A man with heart-on-hand and not easily & seldom gets a high temper.

Technical skills also is necessary but not a must, but should have at least know-how of the basics(1st Law & 2nd law of thermodynamics, works well also with business). It because when you are in the higher up, you don't stick anymore to wiring diagrams or how the induction motor works-something like that, but with business' inputs, outputs, assets and anticipation/mitigation of probable outcomes for decisions to be made and had been made.

The basic requirement to be a boss is one should have been once a subordinate. And the best guideline you could ever follow is asking a question in mind (when you are still a subordinate, relating to what you have experienced) "How should I be If I were a boss"

Well, so far so good, next week I will be turning over to a new boss, and at the same time being a miniature boss to a regional office. "I hope my new boss & my subordinates is ready for me so to speak".