糟糕老板正好就是你的最佳职场导师

“透视领导力”是《财富》杂志一个在线互动社区，最有思想、最具影响力的商界人士将在此回答关于职业与领导力的问题。今天我们的问题是：“在你的职业生涯当中，你学到的最重要的经验教训是什么？”以下为Axonify公司CEO卡洛尔•利曼的回答。

正如老话说的那样，如果我在职业生涯当中每学到一条教训都能得到一个5美分硬币，我现在肯定已经很富有了。在你年轻的时候，你没有办法预测或者知道你会面临多少挑战，这实际上是好事。如果大多数人都能预先了解前途坎坷，恐怕我们都会放弃传统的职业道路，选择在加勒比海滩开一家小酒店，靠卖果汁朗姆酒为生，从而过上“轻松的生活”。如今，我进入职场已有二十多年时间，我已经接受了学无止境这种说法。我渐渐发现，新的经验教训模式和主题，往往是我之前种种遭遇的变体。

但有一件事一直没有变。它对我的成功、同事们的成功以及整个公司的成功，产生了直接影响。这条教训可以归结为领导者在工作中如何展现自己；他们有能力让一家公司从优秀变成卓越，也有可能摧毁一家公司。领导者的基本态度，比如如何应对挑战和如何积极对待公司的其他人，是对有效领导力最好的考验。

初入职场时，我就曾遭遇过一位糟糕透顶的老板。他不仅自大傲慢，令人生畏，而且喜欢提高嗓门说话。事实上，这位老板非常难相处，以至于经常有人问我，如何能忍受为这样一位糟糕的老板工作。回头想想，我认为这要归结于多个因素：我当时还年轻，心思单纯，有些胆小。除了忍受，别无他法，而且我也不知道还有其他的选择。

这位老板带来的负面影响一直困扰着我：人们害怕承担风险，披露坏消息会引发恐慌，而提出意见则意味着你将成为众人嘲笑的对象。简而言之，没有人以最佳状态投入工作，包括我在内。我们生活在恐惧当中，大部分工作时间都在窃窃私语地讨论公司的问题，猜测谁会是老板的下一个目标。

几年后，我第一次担任CEO，终于有机会研究一名领导者的情绪和态度如何影响公司绩效。别误会，我并没有满脸堆笑地在办公室里闲逛，发布幸福的宣言——我采用的是实实在在的作法。我尽最大努力告诉所有人真相。我没有各种狂躁的极端情绪。我会努力用人性化的方式解决棘手的情况。我的终极目标是为我、我的员工和我的团队树立信心。（财富中文网）

译者：刘进龙/汪皓

审校：任文科

The Leadership Insider network is an online community where the most thoughtful and influential people in business contribute answers to timely questions about careers and leadership. Today’s answer to the question “What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned in your career?” is by Carol Leaman, CEO of Axonify.

As the old saying goes, if I had a nickel for every lesson I’ve learned in my career I’d be a very rich person. In fact, it’s actually a good thing that you have no way to anticipate or appreciate just how many challenges you’ll be faced with when you’re young. If most of us knew, we’d eschew the traditional career route and find a beach shack in the Caribbean where we could sell fruity rum drinks and live “the easy life.” Now that I’m more than a couple of decades into my career, I’ve come to accept that the lessons will never end. Over time I’ve recognized patterns and themes to the point where new lessons tend to be a variation of things I’ve encountered before.

But there is one lesson in particular that has been consistent. It’s had a direct impact on my success, the success of the people I work with, and the success of business as a whole. It all comes down tohow leaders present themselves at work; they have the power to turn a good company into a great one, or destroy it. A leader’s general attitude — how theydeal with challenges and how they actively treat others in the business — is the best test of effective leadership.

Very early in my career I was on the receiving end of abysmal treatment at work. My boss at the time was arrogant, intimidating, and loved to — ahem — raise his voice. In fact, he was so difficult to work with that I was constantly asked how I could work for such a terrible boss. Looking back, I think it was a combination of things; I was young, naiive, and shy. I felt like I had no choice but to put up with it,plus I didn’t know any differently.

The fallout was all around me: people were afraid to take risks, disclosing bad news incited panic, andoffering an opinion meant you were setting yourself up for ridicule. In a nutshell, not a single employee including me, performed at peak. We lived in fear and spent a lot of time at work whispering about problems and who was the latest target.

Several years later I became a CEO for the first time and finally got the opportunity to see how a leaders mood and attitude effects performance. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t run around the office with a smile pasted on my face, making happy proclamations — I’m just real. I do my best to tell the truth. I don’t have wild extremes of emotion. And I try to deal with tough situations with a human approach. At the end of the day, my goal is to instill confidence — in me, my employees, and my team.