Crete's Corner

also i might want to add:
It's a big difference, if you are in a big company or a small one.
You always read stuff like:
You boss isn't your friend,
but in a smaller company that can totally be the case depending on the people.
The stereotype of the boss that wants to get as much money out of his employees is not always true.. but very well can be xD
 
if the manager's wife dies and he suddenly become consistently nice would it be rude to bring him some Congratulations balloons?

No, not rude. That would be astute situational awareness... which I as tempted to list as my #1 quality of an excellent leader, but after weighing it I'd rather a leader be accountable than be able to read the room/situation and act accordingly.

(if they can do both though... that is VERY good)
 
Crete Thoughts #1: What's the most important quality in a leader?

So, in my current job the thing that has me most looking to leave boils down to one thing. The leadership is just... Not leaders. They're not necessarily bad people, but they don't know HOW to lead and it drives me insane daily. There is no development of people, once you're good at your job you're STUCK. They don't want to move you or advance you, because then they'd have to replace you and that's difficult. They have policies they only selectively enforce sometimes, they allow people to take liberties they shouldn't, they gossip amongst the lower employees when they're frustrated, and they are intentionally opaque with big decisions that affect the entire company. It's just infuriating to see, coming from the school that quite literally BEATS proper leadership into you.

So it got me thinking, in yalls opinion, what is the single most important quality for a leader to possess? I don't want a whole list, just what in your mind is THE most important quality a leader can have?

I think for me, it would be "ownership." Whatever they do, they own it 100%. You can delegate tasks, but you can't delegate responsibility. I think a leader needs to be the first one with their hand up when things go wrong, if their people are working, they're working, and owning every single piece of what's in their sphere of responsibility and not putting things off because they're more difficult. Own the responsibility of leading and do what needs doing.

That's my opinion. Anyone else wanna chime in, or we wanna just sit still in the brackish water?
Leading by example.
 
So, as many of you know I collect and do all kinds of weird things. I'm routinely hitting the estate sales and thrift stores and whatnot for cast iron, books, picture frames, and shit like that. But I also have a fairly large vinyl collection. Not the hipster doofus kind. More the "reminds me of my childhood" kind.
Anyways, I usually find an album or two every few months at the thrift store. However, today I found 15 absolute classic albums at one store. Kind of bums me out to think that somebody probably passed away and that's why this decent collection was there, but I'll give them a spin and maybe their soul will be a little happier because of it...
 
So, as many of you know I collect and do all kinds of weird things. I'm routinely hitting the estate sales and thrift stores and whatnot for cast iron, books, picture frames, and shit like that. But I also have a fairly large vinyl collection. Not the hipster doofus kind. More the "reminds me of my childhood" kind.
Anyways, I usually find an album or two every few months at the thrift store. However, today I found 15 absolute classic albums at one store. Kind of bums me out to think that somebody probably passed away and that's why this decent collection was there, but I'll give them a spin and maybe their soul will be a little happier because of it...
Which ones you find???
 
So, as many of you know I collect and do all kinds of weird things. I'm routinely hitting the estate sales and thrift stores and whatnot for cast iron, books, picture frames, and shit like that. But I also have a fairly large vinyl collection. Not the hipster doofus kind. More the "reminds me of my childhood" kind.
Anyways, I usually find an album or two every few months at the thrift store. However, today I found 15 absolute classic albums at one store. Kind of bums me out to think that somebody probably passed away and that's why this decent collection was there, but I'll give them a spin and maybe their soul will be a little happier because of it...
Bro this is crete's not pit's corner












(Hope you're doing well)
 
Which ones you find???
1. Eagles- One of these Nights
2. Cat Stevens- Tea for the Tillerman
3. Cat Stevens- Teaser and Firecat
4. The Fifth Dimension- Age of Aquarius
5. The 4 Seasons- Golden His
6. Three Dog Night- It Ain’t Easy
7. Dolly Parton- 9 To 5 And Odd Jobs
8. Carol King- Fantasy
9. The Charlie Daniels Band- High Lonesome
10. The Moody Blues- Every Good Boy Deserves Favour
11. The Supremes at the Copa
12. The Mamas and the Papas- Farewell to the First Golden Era
13. Chicago- Self Titled Double LP
14. Chicago- Chicago At Carnegie Hall
15. Chicago- V Double LP
 
1. Eagles- One of these Nights
2. Cat Stevens- Tea for the Tillerman
3. Cat Stevens- Teaser and Firecat
4. The Fifth Dimension- Age of Aquarius
5. The 4 Seasons- Golden His
6. Three Dog Night- It Ain’t Easy
7. Dolly Parton- 9 To 5 And Odd Jobs
8. Carol King- Fantasy
9. The Charlie Daniels Band- High Lonesome
10. The Moody Blues- Every Good Boy Deserves Favour
11. The Supremes at the Copa
12. The Mamas and the Papas- Farewell to the First Golden Era
13. Chicago- Self Titled Double LP
14. Chicago- Chicago At Carnegie Hall
15. Chicago- V Double LP
The It List thread!
 
1. Eagles- One of these Nights
2. Cat Stevens- Tea for the Tillerman
3. Cat Stevens- Teaser and Firecat
4. The Fifth Dimension- Age of Aquarius
5. The 4 Seasons- Golden His
6. Three Dog Night- It Ain’t Easy
7. Dolly Parton- 9 To 5 And Odd Jobs
8. Carol King- Fantasy
9. The Charlie Daniels Band- High Lonesome
10. The Moody Blues- Every Good Boy Deserves Favour
11. The Supremes at the Copa
12. The Mamas and the Papas- Farewell to the First Golden Era
13. Chicago- Self Titled Double LP
14. Chicago- Chicago At Carnegie Hall
15. Chicago- V Double LP
full albums or 45s?
 
Accountability. And I think ownership ties in with that. A leader keeps you accountable, which makes you do your job better, but they also keep themselves accountable so you can respect them. Whatever standard they set, it's for both you and themselves. A good leader will have a realistic but quality standard and everyone is kept accountable to keep it.

I have worked for leaders who are pure garbage. So bad that I and the guys I worked with nicknamed him "CB" which stood for colostomy bag. Because he might as well have been one. Now under my current job, my manager and our department director are easily the best leaders I've ever worked for. My manager is not only an absolute wizard when it comes to IT, he has managed to find the delicate sweet spot of accountability without micromanaging. That's a difficult place to exist. But he keeps the team on track, he communicates effectively, he advocates for us, and doesn't expect us to operate at a level he doesn't already meet himself.
This

What I would add is focus. A leader is able to point a team in the direction that is needed to go to be in the direction of the end goal. For a team to work, and every job has its basis in teams, whether a one employee operation, or Google, who breaks down those people into manageable subgroups, the leaders that are best able to focus their team through common goals/culture/dollars is the person I want in charge of me. I need a clear end game to determine the best path. I also want to be left alone to get my shit done once focused on the goal.

As someone who does not consider himself a good leader but has no choice, I struggle with leadership because I struggle with people who have differing mindsets. I lead by setting an example of hard work. Nose down. Get shit done. I direct my team where and how to go and trust they deliver, but unfortunately that has recently backfired and I was forced to eliminate 1/4 of my team of 8 key office employees as the direction went so far off course, I had to make changes to preserve our culture. And now I have a ton of work, manage my 100+ field employees directly, can rarely post here, and am generally miserable most days by my own making. The good news is that I recognized my deficiencies in team building, nurturing, and employee growth and hired an amazing person to learn my business, take over the day to day, and allow me to focus on a real growth path. So call it excited misery.

And now I will circle back to @ABB and the use of humility. It took me 12 years to realize that I was not the best manager for my business. The new person is in her first month and already creating pathways to make the management of this business easier. Funnily my wife has been telling me that I am not a good manager of people for years. It took real humility for me to look in the mirror and realize that our success might have been in spite of me. Who knows, but I am excited to find out.

Love the thread @bconcrete Keep it up
 
Did some reading and not entirely sure I'm buying it.

Correlation/causation fallacy. High testosterone can make one seek out leadership roles, but I'm not seeing anything indicative of the inverse ie that leadership requires high testosterone.

Additionally, nothing I've read says the high T person would be a GOOD leader or exhibit strong leadership qualities once they're in that position, which would just make them a boss, not a true leader.
Yes, often they are terrible leaders and completely unfit for the job. Same in primates. How they wield the authority they so easily acquire is much more important. Just in terms of getting there, T is enormously impactful.
Probably that doesn’t fall under leadership though. More politics.
Where T is crucial to leadership is in the desire to be in that position.
In a fixed hierarchy where the leader is chosen as a result of things like age, gender, legacy or dynasty rather than true desire to be a constructive every day leader, it will be disastrous for that person’s mental health (probably physical too) and the consequences of that for the team are obviously terrible.
Same thing applies to high T. People in positions they consider to be too low. Then they will cause friction and consternation making the leader’s job very difficult.
T has a big influence on group dynamics and on the individual.
Another thing is posture. Which is related to T & C but also directly to leadership and messaging.
 
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