First Boss
A person's first boss is VERY important to that person's development. We've said it before, and we doubt we'll ever stop.
Too many of us had bad first bosses, and we saw all kinds of behaviors that, without context, we assumed were "boss behaviors." That means that our paradigm of how we look at bosses is flawed. All bosses are mean. All bosses are petty about their power. All bosses give no guidance, and then punish any effort at all.
Those probably sound harsh. But if those comments described your first boss, when you were working for him or her, you only had a sample size of one. Your first boss was "all" bosses. Your brain naturally helped you out (believe it or not), by storing away a belief, leading to a paradigm, that made "all" bosses that way.
What can we do? First, if you're a boss with first-time professionals, make sure you're doing it right. Develop your relationships, give plenty of professional performance feedback, and develop them. Find out what they're good at and make sure they do a lot of it.
You'll probably read a lot about young professionals needing more coddling today. It's not true. Get to know each one of them, individually, rather than accepting some gross generalization. Expect them to perform at high levels. Tell them when they do so. Tell them when they don't.
Second, if you're not managing first-time professionals, you may have managers who are working for you who ARE. Hold THEM accountable. Measure that they're doing that boring managerial stuff.
It works. Less bad first bosses is a good thing.
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