Do You Have What It Takes to Be the Boss?

“The challenge of Leadership is to be strong, but not rude; be kind but not weak; be bold but not a bully; be thoughtful but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud but not arrogant; have humor but without folly.” Jim Rohn

Being the boss is not a job for everyone. Like you, I have met leaders who do not understand how to lead or what to do to succeed. Their lack of knowledge affects everyone around them.

Mental Toughness and Ruthlessness

Management is one of few professions which requires no formal training nor demonstrated capability. It is hard to showcase your expertise when you spend your time cleaning up after your boss.

There are times when competence, mental toughness, and ruthlessness are required. Compassion is the third component that defines a leader who makes the tough calls. Those four components ensure complex decisions are made and executed to enable the leader to sleep at night.

I was one of four Manufacturing Vice Presidents for a mid-size company that had invested in North America, China, and Mexico. We reported directly to the President. My responsibility was two plants in the US and two plants in another country. The facilities in Mexico, run by one of my counterparts, did not deliver on their profitability, changing the dynamic of the profit balance across the organization. The failure of those plants placed the strategic plan in danger.

All Options Are Bad

Every division had to produce more profit in the coming year. All of us made tough decisions. My team developed a list of options. All were bad. I picked out a solution. All we had to do was close a well-performing plant and move the work to another less expensive country. One of my non-American plants was the lucky winner.

Could you fly halfway around the world to close a plant with five hundred people to maintain the requested profitability? Could you make that decision then implement it?

I flew for hours to shut down a plant that was meeting expectations. Five hundred people were working or associated with the plant and its sub-suppliers. How do you tell good people goodbye: your work ethic is excellent, your quality is superb, the customers love the product, but you are losing your job in the next year because a plant in Mexico is failing? You don’t.

No matter what you say, they hear, “We are shutting down the plant because we can build this product in Korea for twenty percent less than what we are paying here. Oh, yeah… I need you to train the team that will inherit your jobs.” You appear to be a heartless bastard. Harsh, too bad for you.

Can You Take The Heat?

Could you take the heat from the employees in an all-hands meeting then listen carefully to their concerns? It was your decision to crush the life out of the plant and the people in it.

“A leader has the compassion to listen to the needs of others. He does not set out to be a leader, but becomes one by the equality of his actions and the integrity of his intent.” — Douglas MacArthur

Why did you shut it down? Because you are the executive in charge and your job is to meet the company's objectives. That is why you make the big bucks.

Stand in front of the employees and take the pressure. Use the compassion portion of your personality to ensure that the people in the plant are treated with respect when they leave. Use the power of your position to get your plant the best severance package the company can provide.

Fly over yourself to make the announcement and absorb the negative hits taking away people’s jobs. The plant closure is as personal as a relationship breakup. You cannot send someone in your place. That is equivalent to ending an intense, passionate relationship with a text message. You are the boss who decided. Stand and deliver.

Don’t pretend like you will execute something that you know you can’t. Don’t lie to yourself.

It takes a person with the mental toughness to make courageous decisions day after day and not be affected. Either you have what it takes to lead an organization, or you don’t.

“He who would accomplish little must sacrifice little; he who would achieve much must sacrifice much; he who would attain highly must sacrifice greatly.”–James Allen

If you can competently perform your job and have ruthlessness, mental toughness, competence, and compassion, you are one of the lucky few. Make your move. You are needed in Corporate America right now.

Initially published in medium.com - https://medium.com/swlh/do-you-have-what-it-takes-to-be-the-boss-b85ab7467e3b