Carole wanted a stress free team.  Her first boss was tough.  Being on his team was stressful.  Whenever she asked him for permission to do something, he would pepper her with questions.

At meetings, he would often let people argue. This made Carole uncomfortable.  Nothing on his team seemed to happen without debate.  But, now it was Carole’s turn to lead. 

The Crowd-Pleasing Leader is an OxyMORONic Leader

Though her first boss was loved and respected by many people, Carole felt like there was a better way to lead. She was an agreeable person and felt like her attitude would foster a tight knit team.

She read a book called Contented Cows Give Better Milk and believed that premise deeply.  In fact, she made having a happy team her primary goal.

As time went on, her team gave her the nickname “Mama Bear” because she was always so caring.  There wasn’t anything she wouldn’t do for her people.

A Conversation, A Meeting, and A Review

1.  A Conversation

Paul came into Carole’s office obviously upset.  He was tired of people in the office dressing unprofessionally.  Carole listened to him and promised to speak to Patti who Paul felt was the biggest offender.

When Carole spoke with Patti, Patti became indignant.  Patti felt her way of dressing was in line with today’s fashions.  She pointed out that the company dress code was at least 5 years old and needed an update.  Carole listened to her and promised to speak to upper management about the dress code.  This placated Patti and she went back to her desk.

Carole called her boss and left a voicemail message about the situation.  Next, Carole spent 30 minutes on the phone with her HR manager discussing the dress code.

As a result, she was placed on a committee that would review the current dress code.  The first meeting was in 2 weeks.  When she told Paul and Patti about her progress, neither were thrilled, but thanked her for working on it.

2.  A Meeting

Even though the weekly meeting was on the calendar to begin at 1:00 PM, people wandered in until 1:10PM.  People quieted down when the Carole’s boss walked in.  He took a seat in the back of the room as Carole started the meeting.

About ten minutes in, Mark raised his hand.  He asked if he could begin turning in the weekly reports on Sunday night instead by 5:00 PM Friday.  Others liked the idea so Carole gave them the green light as long as they all promised to get it done on time.  Carole had to have her reports in by 10:00 am Monday.

Later, Martha asked why the company didn’t offer 3 weeks of vacation time like her husband’s company did.  Carole promised to look into the issue and see what she could do.

Around 2:30 PM a debate between Paul and Mark began over the best contract structure for the team’s largest customer.  Carole quickly cut off the two men before it got too heated.  She asked the team to vote on the best path.  Though Carole thought Mark’s idea was best, Paul had always been more persuasive than Mark so the majority voted with Paul.

By 4:00, the whole team was getting restless.  Carole needed to do 30 minutes of required HR driven training.  As she queued up the DVD, Patti asked if she could go make some last minute calls at her desk.  She promised to get the DVD and watch it before the week ended.

Paul raised his hand and asked for the same consideration.  Carole said yes but made them promise to take care of it by Friday

By the time Carole hit the play button two more people had promised to watch the video on their own.   At this point, Carole’s boss excused himself as well.

3.  The Review

Carole knew doing a review with Paul would be a challenge.  Paul usually had a list of grievances he brought to every meeting.  In fact, Carole felt like she spent as much time following up on Paul’s requests as the rest of her team combined.

Paul was not happy at the end of his review.  He only received a cost of living increase in his annual salary. Even though he had not hit his numbers in any of the previous 4 quarters, Paul expected more of a raise.

Carole promised to try to pull some strings to get him a larger raise.  By the time Paul walked out of her office, she was worn out.

She was even more worn out by the “To Do List” she now had as a result of Paul’s review.  She could see she was going to be on the phone with her boss and HR for the rest of the day as a result of Paul’s review.

What The Boss Said

When it was time for her annual review her boss started bluntly by saying, “Mama Bear, the inmates are running the asylum….”

Her boss pointed out that he never heard Carole say “no” to her team.   She created new policies for the convenience of one person.  And, Carole had made promises she couldn’t keep and therefore gave people false hope.

Though Carole felt her team was happy, her results were mediocre.  After her boss opened her review with those comments, things went from bad to worse.

The Bottom Line:

Every rule can have exceptions, but in Carole’s team, the exceptions became the rule because she wanted to please everyone.

When the rules were out of her control, she made vacant promises to look into the issues.  Is a middle manager really going to change a company’s vacation policy?  She created a false sense of hope in each of these cases so she didn’t have to disappoint her team.

Yes.  No problem.  Let’s vote on this.  I will look into it.  These are all common responses in The Crowd-Pleasing Leader’s arsenal.  A Crowd-Pleasing Leader is an OxyMORONic Leader because she makes serving her people the only goal.

A real leader is not a crowd pleaser.  Leadership requires the leader to make decisions that will make someone unhappy.  A real leader understands that you can be a servant leader and still disappoint people.  It is not always fun.  But, it is a requirement of the job.

 Question:

When a leader tries to be too much of a crowd-pleaser how does that affect morale in the long run?