Boss, Not a Leader

I was recently promoted. 37 notifications on Slack (a messaging app). All with the same message, “Congratulations!” except for one, my boss. He said, “Congratulations Khavi! …now you can share the news with your family and friends.” I replied with a thanks followed by a smiley.

Rest of the day, work, colleagues, and lunch with them, all of it was same as the day before. Nothing felt different. It was the first promotion of my life, why did it feel so empty? Was it because I was promised but denied the promotion last year since office policy had suddenly changed? Or, was it because a dozen other colleagues were also promoted with me?

Days went by and I found two things that had changed in my life. The first was the number of expectations my boss had in terms of work delivered. And the second was a little raise in salary. But neither of them helped me figure out why the promotion itself felt empty.

There was an interesting policy to evaluate performance of employees every 6 months. I had to create a document (much like this article you are reading) and provide evidences for all the great work I had done in the last 6 months, and then submit it to my boss. It was called ‘self-review.’ There was a ‘downward-review’ as well, which my boss had to create. Here, he would describe his perception of my work over the last 6 months. In the end, we used to sit together and discuss the two reviews, and send the finalized review to the upper management.

The process was very effective and efficient. After the reviews, if the employee was found lagging behind, the boss would flag it and someone from HR would send the study materials to the employee over email. There was no way one couldn’t grow.

Three such cycles of 6 months had passed and at the end of each cycle, HR would always send me something. Every time, something was missing from my work. There were good things too. My boss had mentioned them in the ‘downward-review.’ But I had to work upon the missing stuff for the next 6 months, then I had to work upon fixing something else for another 6 months, and it kept going on. The growth was inevitable. But the question was, “to what end?”

The boss and the office culture seemed nurturing. And yet my colleagues had long face almost every day. The environment supported growth in theory but for some reason, I put in my resignation one day and left the place. I wasn’t sure why I did that.

My boss asked me the reason but I couldn’t provide him one. But 2 years later, now I can.

Our work was appreciated through salaries and by no other means. And please note that it was our work that was appreciated, and not us, the people producing the work. And this is probably why I neither liked nor hated my boss, or any other colleagues for that matter. Perhaps, they felt the same toward me!

It was only after I resigned that I learned my boss’s indifference.

Indifferent to promotion, indifferent to resignation, indifferent to people in general. He had two kids, a boy and a girl. I wonder if he knows anything about my family. But one thing is for sure. That he was a good boss, a total boss …just not a leader with some purpose.

And this is exactly why I left.

I had no leader to follow, and hence nothing that actually made ‘me’ grow.

Walking away brought me clarity about my own situation, what I needed, and what growth actually meant for me. And it was the ability to speak, express, and stick with my truth through writing.

In the end, I would like you to stop and question your current state of career, your current state of life. Question how they make you feel throughout the day. Question if the growth in your life is actually making ‘you’ grow or not. 

Because not every tall building means progress, not every promotion means growth, and not every boss is a leader.

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Thanks for reading,

from Khavi Darpan.