Leadership Lessons I Have Learned from my Supervisors

Supervisor Training Segment 14

In the first 13 training segments, you learned how to develop and broadcast the physical, mental, emotional, religious, and verbal characteristics that are essential to earning a permanent supervisory seat.

Now that you are a supervisor, you can replace commonly used words like “employee” and “direct report” with the word “target”.

Lesson 1: Leadership alternatives

Not everyone is a born leader who when put in a leadership position can hurry up and develop leadership skills. Not to worry – below is a leadership substitution list.

• Bully
• Browbeat
• Demean
• Sidestep (make a bogus point and when your target counteracts with Fairness and Truth, immediately sidestep to a bogus tangential point)
• Lie (see above and also remember that your supervisor wants to avoid direct contact with your targets at all costs. That’s why they put you in the middle management position – so you can keep the two sides of the Oreo from touching. Therefore, a reasonably well-constructed middle manager lie, and in some work environments any lie, will be regarded by your supervisor as an acceptable alternative to a target’s insistence on Fairness and Truth.)

Lesson 2: Trim the FaT

Blindfolded Lady Justice guards the portals of the legal system balancing the scales of Fairness and Truth (FaT). You can liberally incorporate this concept into your management style as long as you make some modifications. Some FaT trimming techniques are expanded upon in subsequent lessons.

• When spawning a new demand of your target, put on your blindfold and aim for 0 to 60 in less than 5 seconds.
  • Do not draw here on the example of successful racing teams. Those people do far too much planning based on logical analysis. Draw instead on the game of “chicken”.
  • It cannot be stressed enough that in order to pick up enough speed you must avoid any vestige of FaT.
  • When your target balks, insist that you have already made this demand several times.
  • Remember that the fact that you have no evidence of these repeated demands and your target has evidence to the contrary cannot hurt you.
  • Minimize the risk that your race to the finish will result in some chaos by applying yourself to diligent practice of Lesson 3, Develop Your Creative Imagination.
• When your target has done something to piss you off (adhere to this criterion for getting pissed off: your target disagrees with you) put on your blindfold and
  • Aim for comprehensive 0 to 60 in less than 5 seconds retaliation.
  • If your target retaliates with FaT, trim it immediately.
  • Remember that the fact that you have no evidence of bonafide transgressions and your target has evidence to the contrary cannot hurt you.
  • Otherwise as above.
• When establishing yourself as a savior awash in a sea of stupid targets (adhere to this definition of “stupid”: anyone who disagrees with you) put on your blindfold and
  • Aim for a 0 to 60 in less than 5 seconds leap into situations with which you have not acquainted yourself.
  • When your targets balk, insist that you are the only one with a finger on the pulse of the common good.
  • Minimize the risk that your blind leap may land you in a heap of havoc by immediately locating an unsuspecting and preferably already compromised person to whom to transfer blame.
  • Remember that the fact that you have no evidence of your success where others have failed and your targets have evidence to the contrary cannot hurt you.
  • Otherwise as above.

Lesson 3: Let your target know you’re the boss

• Repeatedly use the word “want”. Make sure you always pair it with the word “I”.
• Always sit in the power seat.
  • at the head of the conference table
  • behind your office desk
  • closest to the phone during a conference call
  • in the biggest and most expensive chair in the room
• Insist that your target pay full and immediate attention to your every word. When your target speaks to you, make clear your target’s lesser importance by
  • frequently glancing at your cell phone
  • reading and replying to text messages
  • pacing
  • fanning yourself with melodramatic flair
  • commenting on events such as birds flying by the window
• Draw from the example of cult leaders.
  • Limit your target’s contact with others within and without your department.
  • Deny your target’s requests to sit on committees and attend non-departmental meetings.
  • This tactic gives you the dual advantage of showing your target who’s the boss and of avoiding the risk that others, some with greater authority than you, may pose a threat to the credibility of your reports of your target’s untrustworthy and unsavory traits.
• Develop your creative imagination.
  • During meetings with your target, make up events, conversations, and transgressions that support your unscrupulous power decisions.
  • Remember that if it comes to a showdown, your supervisor will accept your creative constructions over any accurate FaT documentation your target might have squirreled away up a sleeve.
• Draw from the magic of Harry Potter.
  • Wrap a loudmouth target in the cloak of invisibility (adhere to this definition of “loudmouth”: anyone who disagrees with you).
  • Keep the shame of invisibility in the forefront of your target’s mind by refusing to
    • make eye contact
    • answer the target’s emails or phone calls
    • acknowledge the target’s comments in meetings
    • address the target in the 1^st person
• Develop themes to keep your target guessing.
  • Never forget the power of paranoia.
    • Well-nurtured paranoia can easily obviate its lack of foundation.
    • Be sure to link your paranoia to as many innocent actions of your target as possible.
    • Nurture your ballooning idea that your target is building a kingdom of expertise and is barring you from entry.
    • Once it’s full-blown, you paranoia will convince even you that it’s well founded, thereby facilitating enhanced control of your target by casting suspicion on your target’s every move.
  • Insist on involving yourself in all your target’s tasks, even if you don’t know anything about them.
    • Nurture your ballooning idea that your target’s proven track record of exemplary performance needs further investigation.
    • If your target resists, apply yourself to diligent practice of Lesson 3, Never Forget the Power of Paranoia.
    • Stoke the vicious cycle fires that ensue as your target becomes increasingly more resistant to your involvement and you become increasingly more insistent that your intervention is somehow warranted.
    • This too will enhance control of your target by insinuating all the way up your chain of command that your target’s sphere of authority must be constrained.
  • Assist your target with supervision.
    • Nurture your ballooning idea that your target’s proven supervisory expertise is a cover-up for heinous malfeasance.
    • Establish clandestine meetings during which you give direct commands to your target’s direct reports.
    • Rearrange the priorities your target has established for direct reports. Minimize the risk that your rearrangement may wreak havoc by applying yourself to diligent practice of Lesson 3, Never Forget the Power of Paranoia.
    • You need do no more – your chain of command, target’s direct reports, and target’s coworkers will quickly get the idea that your target must be closely supervised by you due to some undisclosed supervisory deficiencies.
  • Invite your target to frequent last-minute meetings where you reluctantly express your concerns about soft skills complaints from coworkers.
    • No matter how vehemently your target insists, stick to your guns that mentioning the name of the complainant and the specific complaint would constitute a violation of privacy.
    • Be sure to mention your concerns on the annual evaluation.
    • Minimize the risk that your target will research and dismantle each bogus complaint by keeping your verbiage ambiguous and non-specific.
    • Minimize the risk that your target actually gets along well with others by thorough application of Lesson 4, Draw from the example of the Nazi regime and Prod the crazy.
    • Careful attention to other sections of Lesson 4 will also ensure your successful execution of this theme.

Lesson 4: What if it seems your target is effectively using FaT to gain the upper hand? Use the back door!

• Refuse to accept your target’s standing in the organizational structure.
  • If your target is only one rung below you, offer helpful title alternatives that will place your target a safer distance from your position on the ladder.
  • Even if HR does not accept your offer, use this alternative title in conversations with your chain of command, your target, your target’s coworkers, and visitors to your department.
• Execute coup’s that remove those of your target’s areas of authority that you find especially threatening, preferably when your target isn’t looking (at a conference, on vacation, out sick).
  • This is especially effective if you have already overwhelmed your target with work, denied pleas for help, and then duped your target into accepting the coup by camouflaging it as an offer of assistance.
  • Practice the phrase “resistant to change”. This is a nice alternative to the word “old” while expressing the same idea.
  • If you set this up correctly, you cannot fail. You leave your target no choice but to accept the coup or to protest and risk being perceived as a recalcitrant, disgruntled employee who refuses to accept your help.
• Frequently mention the name of your supervisor. Make sure to stress that your supervisor is in 100% agreement with everything you do and say.
• Use the annual evaluation to your advantage.
  • Make negative comments that you have never mentioned before.
  • If your target successfully defends against unfounded accusations of poor performance, all is not lost. Remember that it’s next to impossible to defend against soft skills accusations.
• Draw from the example of the Nazi regime.
  • Convince others in your department that it’s in their best interests and in the best interests of the department to rat out your target.
  • Be careful to minimize the risk that others have nothing negative to report. Lead with insinuations that as much as it pains you to disclose, you have observed undesirable traits in your target.
• Develop your selective memory.
  • Even if your target has kept a thorough record of communications with you, all is not lost.
  • Insist that your recollection is the correct one.
  • This only seems like a risky proposition if you forget that your supervisor will consider your selective recollection an acceptable alternative to FaT as long as it shields your supervisor from direct involvement with your target.
• Prod the crazy.
  • Identify your target’s sensitive areas and select an appropriate prod tool. Prod tools can take the form of
    • Squatting in a makeshift space near your target’s office, inserting yourself in all your target’s activities, and scheduling frequent meetings to discuss the ways in which your target is violating your spur of the moment policies. Review Lesson 3, Insist on involving yourself in all your target’s tasks, even if you don’t know anything about them.
    • Waiting until your target goes on vacation to make urgent unnecessary demands. Review Lesson 2, When spawning a new demand of your target, put on your blindfold and aim for 0 to 60 in less than 5 seconds.
    • Waiting until your target is not at work (at a conference, on vacation, out sick) to send your target emails that boldly express righteous indignation about tasks your target has not carried out or carried out in violation of your rules. Be sure to liberally use formatting such as bolding, underlining, and italicizing. Remember that it is not necessary to be correct. Sufficient speed and insistence will serve to obviate accuracy.
  • Once you have made the proper identification, put on your blindfold and make the first thrust, aiming for 0 to 60 in less than 5 seconds.
  • Continue to apply torque until your target snaps at you or a coworker.
  • Then apply Lesson 3, Develop themes to keep your target guessing – Invite your target to frequent last-minute meetings where you reluctantly express your concerns about soft skills complaints from coworkers.

Please see below a private training session that will be offered in the basement of an abandoned warehouse in a small town in the Yukon Territories. Seating is limited so reserve early. Once you have made your reservation, encrypted instructions will be left for you in a plain brown envelope under the stairs of the southbound A train platform in New York City.

Leadership Lessons I learned from LB
(name concealed to protect the competent)

Supervisor Training Segment 15

Lesson 1: Leadership alternatives

• None

Lesson 2

• Invest in the people you find valuable.
• If they cost something, consider it the cost of doing business.

Lesson 3

• Find the passion in your employees and fuel it.
• Nothing is more effective in moving your department forward.

Lesson 4

• Freely express your sense of humor.
• Nothing is as effective as fun in making people want to show up and do good work.
• It’s also a way to strengthen your relationships with your employees without compromising your position at the helm.

Lesson 5

• Instead of feeling threatened by and thus squelching your employees’ creativity, encourage them to “make you a case”.
• Then listen to their case.
• If it’s a viable one, incorporate the idea in your departmental process and give credit where credit is due.
• Remember that even if it wasn’t your idea, a good idea makes you and the whole team look good.

Lesson 6

• Enfranchise enfranchise enfranchise.
• Instead of creating rogue monsters, you will create incomparably loyal and creative employees.

Lesson 7

• Be self-confident and imbue your employees with your self-confidence.
• If you or they make a mistake, you can set things straight later.

Lesson 8

• Poke fun at your employees but if they come under attack, defend them fiercely.

Lesson 9

• Don’t let your employees fight ground wars.
• You fight the wars and be the buffer between them and the rest of the corporate world.

Lesson 10

• Ditch the erroneous idea that if your employees are underperforming, you should lower the bar.
• Keep the bar high and praise praise praise every effort to reach it.