Like many of you, I am both an employee and a people leader.
At different points of the day, sometimes from one minute to the next, I have to switch gears so that I can be fully present as both a good employee and a good people leader. This constant quest for excellence, from one email to the next, from one meeting to the next as context changes is… taxing.
From observing behavior closely, and from my own experimentation and failure, I’ve noticed consistent patterns in what great employees do and great bosses do. In my long professional career, I’ve tried to emulate these patterns and to build on them as I try to deliver a non-normal impact to my employers.
While obsessing about Marketing and Analytics here on Occam’s Razor, I want to share the habits and behaviors encoded in these patterns so that you can have a non-normal impact in your chosen field as well.
[At the end of this post, you’ll find my guidance summarized in a printable infographic.]
I’ll cover the ten good employee patterns:
1. Never bring problems.
2. Be thorough.
3. Care about little things.
4. Look beyond the near future, see the full landscape of opportunity.
5. Create your personal board of directors.
6. Do at least one thing outside your immediate team/scope.
7. Invest in yourself.
8. Ask for more responsibility, vs. asking for a promotion.
9. Stay weird.
10. Solve for the company, not just your boss.
And follow that with six great boss patterns:
1. If you hire Michelangelo to paint the Sistine Chapel…
2. Explain strategy. And, critically, why that strategy.