On Bosses

On average throughout my career, I have had a new boss every two years. Now, that's not how many jobs I've had (one every other year); just bosses.

The most supportive of my bosses told me I was the best teacher he had ever met in his life; he also repeated that belief, continuously, to everyone within earshot. The "worst" boss I ever had is a toss-up between two of them: the one who straight-out asked me for sex and, when I demurred, found reason to eliminate my job in the next few months (before sexism in the workplace had taken hold of a nation's conscience) or the one who loathed and hated me so much that she did everything she could to undermine me in the eyes of my colleagues and her superiors.

She came to this hatred because I once had challenged her authority, in the sense that I fundamentally disagreed with a decision she'd made. (Why do so many female bosses believe they have to be as authoritarian as the stereotypical male boss of old? Authoritative is one thing; authoritarian is quite another.) But perhaps I should have stayed quiet. Sometimes disagreeing with a boss presents you with a moral dilemma, and within your sightline there is no win-win landscape.

I've had bosses who left me alone to do my own thing, who promoted me with glowing evaluations, who told me I was in charge and then micromanaged everything I did in accomplishment of whatever project I'd been assigned, who were on their BlackBerries every time we went to lunch, who had my back until they didn't, who behaved as if they were in a competition with me, who were unthreatened by me and helped me grow, and who became lifelong, respected friends.

In other words, I've had bosses I did not want to work for and others for whom I would have done anything to help them reach their goals.

I've also been a boss. But that's easy. The trick there is to hire people smarter and more talented than you.