Tech Leadership Unplugged #5:Bosses matter. A lot
And a bad one can negatively influence your career and your perspective on work altogether.
Hey friends,
In this edition, I talk about:
how bad bosses can influence your career
my productivity system
IBM is cutting jobs because of AI
Big4 accounting firms admit COVID-era graduates struggle with communicating
an audiobook recommendation
1/ Leadership: One bad boss can screw everything up.
I wrote a story last week on Twitter about my first job and how the interaction with that company’s CEO made me hate the idea of bosses.
In short, he was a former communist who behaved like a dictator, and I thought all bosses were the same. This is why I swore that I would never be a boss.
The years have passed, and I have met some great managers, which made me reconsider my position. So I started managing people in 2010, and I have been doing it ever since.
People usually underestimate the effect a bad boss can have on their career. I know a lot of people who ended up hating:
jobs
careers
the idea of being employed
Only because they had a bad boss early on.
I know people say “boss” when they mean someone who’s bad, while “leader” is someone who’s good, but in the end, we are talking about people, and some are good at their job while others are not.
(I’ll rant about the whole manager vs. leader perspective, but now’s not the time.)
So, if you have a good boss, be grateful, it can change your career. One of my first bosses did so for me.
He was not perfect, but he had 3 things I admire in a person:
He was fair.
He was funny.
He cared about people.
(I don’t know why I’m using the past tense, because he’s still managing teams)
But if you don’t have a good boss, then you have a problem. It can influence you in a negative way. A lot.
So try to change it. Even if that means leaving the team or the company.
It’s not worth spending years of your life under an incompetent or psychotic manager.
2/ Productivity advice: have a productivity system.
The internet is full of productivity advice. What we all need is an actual productivity system. And I wrote about my system here:
As I told you last week, I am in the process of creating an online course on productivity. It will be quite complex, and I will detail all the steps to take so you can create your own system.
I hope to finish the recordings this week, but I still need to create a landing page and other stuff.
The plan is to have it ready by the end of the month.
3/ AI news: roughly 7,800 IBM jobs could be replaced by AI
IBM CEO Arvind Krishna has announced that the tech giant will freeze hiring as it expects around 7,800 jobs to be replaced by Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the next few years.
In an interview with Bloomberg News, Krishna said he anticipates that about 30% of the company's non-customer-facing roles could be replaced by AI and automation within the next five years.
Although back-office employees make up a small portion of IBM's 260,000 workers, the company has already let go of workers in other areas while continuing to fill roles.
Some analysts fear that AI could lead to mass layoffs, while others argue that the technology can complement human workers and create new industries.
IBM is not the first and won’t be the last, for sure, to replace humans with AI.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
2/ COVID-era graduates struggle with communication, say Deloitte and PwC
It’s clear that more than one year of lockdown and restrictions have taken their toll not only on our well-being but also on some of our communication skills.
This is why Deloitte and PwC are offering additional training to their recent graduate recruits due to the negative impact of the pandemic on their communication and teamwork skills.
PwC is increasing coaching for junior staff and allowing senior managers to coach full-time on a secondment basis.
Deloitte has found that recent recruits had less experience in office work than their predecessors and has brought in a new induction program as well as training on conducting presentations and building professional networks.
The discussion might be a bit more complex than this, as we’re also talking about a shift in mindset with regard to the priorities of this generation. And even though they lack some skills, I’m sure they excel in others, from creativity to having the courage to try entrepreneurship at an early age.
5/ Audiobook recommendation: Mythos by Stephen Fry
Last week, I used one of my Audible credits to buy Mythos, read by Stephen Fry. (The first time I bought the German version by accident, the Audible support was nice enough to return the credit.)
As someone who was very interested in Greek mythology when I was young, this book is a delight.
Fry takes the reader on a journey through the Greek myths, retelling them in his own unique and entertaining way. His writing style is very accessible, making the myths easy to understand for those who may not have studied them before.
I particularly enjoy the humor and wit that Fry brings to the stories, which keep me engaged.
An issue I have is that I fall asleep listening to it, and I have to go back every time I want to listen to it the next day.
Thank you for reading, and let me know if you liked something in particular in this newsletter or if you want me to talk about some other topics.
Until next time,
Leo
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