Is there really a Boss’ Day? That’s weak.

Yesterday I skimmed an article somewhere about the upcoming National Boss Day. The gist was your boss is your boss so employees have to adopt to their management styles, preferences, and idiosyncracies. On the organizational chart at my university, a department “reports” to me, but I like to think we plan and set goals together. I do have scheduled one-one meetings, but I also aim to talk to everyone at least once a day. These might be 3 minute phone calls just checking or they might be 20 minute meetings or maybe 2-3 hour sessions. They might have regarded my phone calls or visits as intrusive when I first started making them, but they don’t any more.

I don’t wait for my department/staff to initiative anything or report problems or brainstorm ideas; if I’m out of the loop, that’s my shortcoming as much as anyone else’s. My job as “boss” is to know what people are working on and with whom, what obstacles exist, what unexpected events have occurred. In an earlier posting I mentioned that our collective brainstorming and organization was very successful, but I didn’t know if that success occurred because of the process or because of the individuals involved. I still wonder – how do bosses adapt their managerial styles to the people they supervise?