Page 62 - Roy W. Rice - CEO Material How to Be a Leader in Any Organization-McGraw-Hill (2009)

You Never Have To Rely on Your Technical Brilliance • 43

a cool and calm manner, tell the tyrant that your next step is to talk to
the boss about the situation. Invite the person to be in on the meeting to
tell his or her side. Be honest, clear, and succinct, and keep your sense of
humor. Be specific. Nothing kills effective communication faster than
general statements such as, “You always...” or “You never....”

If something bugs you, do something about it ASAP instead of
sitting and stewing about it.

Address behavior, not character or motive. State facts, and state the
consequences and changes needed. If bullying is tolerated in your com-
pany, change companies. If it’s with subordinates, fire them.

There are no office politics tolerated. . .. I set an example, and I tell
them I’ll make an example out of them. There is no game playing
and no boundary testing. I had a manager try to take people in a
different direction. I demoted him to the lowest level, promoted a
subordinate over him, and told him he’s going to have to work his
way back up.
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Bad bosses empower snipers.

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View yourself as a global citizen going for international cooperation.

USA Today reports that 51 percent of stress at the office comes from
coworkers and 47 percent from the workload. If you cut out the politics,
you’d cut your stress in half. Unfortunately, Gallup Poll reports that
17 percent of employees admit being actively engaged in sabotaging the
work environment and creating that stress on purpose.
Even with these steps, don’t expect to eliminate bullying from hap-
pening. Despite how careful you are to live the good and right career
path, you will have another encounter with that person or someone like
him or her but with a different name. If you think about how many people
you work with during the course of a day, a week, a month—15, 50, 500—
and if you have one jerk out of the 15, 50, or 500, that’s not bad. Still, it’s
surprising how many people in life seem to think they have a right to give