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1-Page Summary of Superbosses
Overview
When you need to motivate your team, try a day in which you act like a superboss. You can either do this during the workday or on an offsite retreat. Experiment with being any of these three types: nurturer, iconoclast or inglorious bastard. It’s like acting and will help you discover what type works best for motivating your team.
It’s a fact that most employees don’t like their bosses. But there are some great leaders out there who inspire people and get them to perform well despite being tough or demanding. It takes a unique set of qualities to earn the title of “superboss.” Here are some key points explaining what makes superbosses so effective, as well as things you can learn from other great leaders out there.
In this article, you will learn how to be a great leader by being an “inglorious bastard” at work. You’ll see that Larry Ellison’s success is based on his ability to ridicule people and how flexibility in the workplace has nothing to do with touching your toes.
Big Idea #1: Superbosses can be categorized into three groups: iconoclasts, inglorious bastards, and nurturers.
Superbosses are people who can inspire their employees in different ways. They’re all unique and have a specific strength that they can use to help others.
Iconoclasts are the most inspiring because of their dedication to their vision. Their teaching and sharing stems from that dedication, as well as a knock-on effect. In sum, iconoclasts inspire without even intending to! For example, Miles Davis collaborated with younger musicians in order to keep his creativity flowing while still being able to teach them.
On the other hand, some people are characterized by their drive to win. They’ll do whatever it takes to become successful and don’t care who they have to push out of the way in order to achieve that success.
To reach their goal, companies need to be ruthless with all of their employees. They are pushed to do the best they can at all times and failure is not an option. This teaches them a lot about how to deal with pressure from others in order for the company to succeed.
Great leaders can be tough on their teams. Larry Ellison, the founder of Oracle, forces his employees to push themselves beyond what they think is possible through ridicule and other tactics. This approach may seem harsh, but it helps the company stay competitive in a changing market.
On one hand, you have bosses who are demanding and want to see results. We can call them task-oriented leaders or even tyrannical managers.
Norman Brinker was a famous restaurateur who loved to see his employees advance their careers. He mentored 18 of them, and they all became heads of major restaurant chains. How can we emulate this kind of success? We’ll look at the answers in the next section.
Big Idea #2: Every superboss is clear and concise about his vision, competitive to the extreme, and doesn’t fear anything.
To run a successful business, you need three key qualities: vision, fearlessness and competitiveness. A superboss is someone who has these qualities naturally. For example, Ralph Lauren was fearless when he started his company. He and Marty Staff would talk about their dreams over dinner instead of discussing business matters. These conversations helped him be more creative with his ideas for the future of his company. Many superbosses are also competitive in other areas of their lives as well, such as racing sailboats or playing polo (Norman Brinker almost died during a match). Others have the words “No guts – no glory” on their jackets to remind them that they’re not afraid to take risks if it means achieving something great in life or at work
