Bosses, Are You Tough Enough?


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All the time, it's the only way I get things done. Sometimes, I try not to but sometimes I can't help it. Never, I just can't do more than one thing at a time.

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Bosses, Are You Tough Enough?
By: Tama Swan, Associate Editor
Issue: 2009jun

When it comes to decision making, good managers act as benevolent dictators doing what’s best for their subjects.

The sales manager of a software company held a weekly meeting for the firm’s eight salespeople to discuss new business opportunities. During one of these meetings, the sales group decided the marketing materials were weak and needed an upgrade. After dedicating considerable time and attention to the upgrades, sales did not increase.

Later, the sales group reconvened and determined that the product’s features needed improvements in order to increase sales. The group spent significant time and energy discussing how to improve the product. Meanwhile, the manager realized some things:

• Salespeople always want something that is easy to sell.
• The product was fine without new features and marketing.
• Salespeople want more money, not a fully-featured, well-marketed product.

After coming to these conclusions, the manager said to his employees, “Hey, I get that marketing could be better, but I don’t care. Stop griping and start making more sales calls.”

Getting tough with employees and taking charge of decision making like this manager did is what Jim Muehlhausen, CPA, author of The 51 Fatal Business Errors and How To Avoid Them, calls being a benevolent dictator, and he recommends this strategy to any small business that wants to survive.

“Committees and groups typically make watered down decisions. Tough times like these call for tough decisions,” Muehlhausen says. “Democracy does not serve the workplace well.”

This doesn’t mean you have to be an unfeeling tyrant. “Benevolent dictators welcome and encourage input from others,” says Muehlhausen, who compares managing employees to parenting. “However, since it is their name on the door, the ultimate and final decision rides with them.”

Muehlhausen says being an autocrat in the workplace doesn’t give you permission to be a jerk. It’s still important to be nice. “Just because you don’t take input from employees does not mean you don’t have their best interests at heart,” he says. “Hire good people, listen to input, but after you’ve listened, call the play and make sure you have a team on board who’s going to execute it.”

How To Turn Your Office Into A Benevolent Dictatorship

Be decisive. Not making a decision is still a decision, and inaction typically comes at a higher cost.

Learn to make faster decisions. To practice, limit your ordering time at restaurants to one minute.

Tune out your employees. Know when to stop listening and make a unilateral decision that serves everyone.

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