Squishy bosses and the consequences of their flan leadership

Tomás is the director of a multinational. He leads a small table of six area leaders but any claim from his team scares him. He hates with all his soul that he manages conflicts. He tends to agree, always to get out of the discussion. He runs away. He is the complete opposite of being arrogant. He is an indecisive pseudo-commander who is disrespected by the crew. It is not necessary to erode it, it wears itself out. He plays to be the “good vibes”, the close boss. He loses legitimacy at every step.

We are facing a generation of leaders who, as they suffered from authoritarian bosses in the past, as a contrast, want not to be. This puts innumerable sticks in the wheel for the evolution of teams that, instead of sailing, are adrift. These types of leaders have certain characteristics:

These fickle leaders produce confusion due to the lack of roots in their own decisions. They are flaccid in their determination and always put avoiding problems first. They play endless consensus, while the members of their team dream that once in their lives they will hit the table and make a miserable decision. Fools, that will never happen. These types of leaders always prefer to diversify their risk. Scared, they play “it wasn’t me, it was the team”.

On a route, it is crucial to have traffic signals that direct us. Far from being invasive and totalitarian, they are what allow us to reach our destination without crashing. The same thing happens in the workplace, limits help us to give predictability to actions, to direct teams and to achieve the objectives that we set for ourselves. Limits are our friends. These leaders believe that almost any limit can be seen by their team as some kind of repressive act that mortally wounds the untouchable fashionable lady: diversity. They prefer to collide to put a limit that leaves them the nickname of “verticalists”. Gross!

Having empathy implies understanding and listening to others. Try to put ourselves in their place. It has nothing to do with accepting any irrational tantrum or changing course because the picky eater on duty, without further argument, suddenly doesn’t like it. Listening to others is not doing what they want. These pusillanimous leaders want to give the image of being available, but end up being submissive to any claim. They play to be good, but, in truth, they are cowards.

Fear that everything will escalate. In the unconscious of these bosses everything can fly through the air to their detriment. They haunt themselves that someone higher up may find out that their team is unhappy because he or she didn’t listen to them enough. This fear is the backdrop for his actions. His flabby cordiality is a screen against fear. Because they believe that saying “no” makes them look authoritarian, they say “yes” to everything. So, they don’t have any real “yes”. Because if a person always says yes, it means that he doesn’t know where he’s going. A boss or boss who always nods is very dangerous. Those who do not know how to say “no”, do not know how to say “yes”.

As can be seen, these subjects are highly insecure. They do not have the determination to stay on course. They modify their destination according to the comments and thermal sensations of the environment. They are volatile because their insecurity makes them fluctuate towards where the momentary course takes them. They are not salmon swimming against the current, they are fragile twigs that zigzag adrift. With a lethal aggravation, the giant bears that prowl the river realize it and know how to take advantage of that flimsy inconsistency.

In conclusion. Vulnerability is not fragility. Fragility is not the same as vulnerability. It is one thing to share what one feels, not putting up emotional walls and encouraging oneself to express emotions in public. Another, very different, is to be a fast weathercock that any breeze moves it to who knows where. That is not vulnerability, but affective begging, an excessive need for affection that ends in the most futile wandering. This touches the tectonic plates of the matter: in these leaders, there is an orphanage that has not been healed. These types of leaders are broken on the inside.