Friends Who Become Bosses Often Change In Surprising Ways
Francis Dillon and a former colleague at medical school were pals who hung out together both outside work and on the job. "In the hallway, he was the guy who told all the jokes," Mr. Dillon says.
Then something happened to Mr. Dillon's friend that changed him overnight, making him, as Mr. Dillon recalls it, volatile, threatening and "talking crazy talk." The life-changing event? His former friend was promoted into management.
As head of the hospital's anesthesiology department, the man proceeded to try to fire many former colleagues. "He fired my cubicle-mate five times," says Mr. Dillon, who himself was the target of attempted firings twice. The new manager's face would get all red and he'd start wagging his finger. "He'd say, verbatim, 'I'm going to do everything I can to get your a -- out of here,' " Mr. Dillon says. Occasionally, after trying to fire someone on a weekly basis, he would feel great remorse and heap on praise, which was even creepier.
You might think that of all the people who would be sensitive to the perspectives and needs of the rank and file, someone who has been in the group would qualify best. But those who are newly promoted often turn out, despite their acquaintance with lowly stafferdom, to be drunk with power, variously brutal toward their erstwhile friends and whiny about the sudden incompetence that surrounds them. They frequently vacillate between iron-fisted control on the one hand and sweet camaraderie on the other.
People who promote these staffers, and the staffers who now work for -- instead of with -- them, are often blindsided by the sudden narcissistic bloom a loftier title can produce. "You may not know until you put this person in a new position of responsibility what about this personality is going to flower," says Harry Levinson, one of the founders of psychoanalytic organizational psychology. "Often people don't know what the hell to do with power."
Except to flaunt it. Joe Farricielli's former colleague-turned-manager would state the numbingly obvious in the form of a command and mistake it for leadership. Similarly vacuous were the persistent attempts of Carolan Wishall's colleague to make sure her new job title was affixed to every memo that mentioned her name and her frequent trips down the hall to ask a secretary to get so-and-so on the line. "Dialing your own phones doesn't get the stage time," says Ms. Wishall, who works in health-care education.
It's tricky enough for any green manager to learn that real power is derived from character and influence, not a title or any other little footstool that pokes ones head just above the bottom layer of the hierarchy. But for a manager to lead a team he was part of is particularly tough. The risk is so well established that the military pulls newly promoted officers out of the unit in which they used to serve. That way, lower ranks don't have to witness the awkward transformation of their new officer, says retired Army colonel Patrick Toffler, adding, "These rules come from the lessons of hard knocks."
At least some tyrants-in-training come to learn the horror of their ways. When Ken Allen was 25 years old, he was pulled from the ranks to lead a group of people who had years more experience. Between those who resisted him from below and those who pressured him from above, he says, "I felt like a lost ball in high weeds."
He also moved quickly from being the popular organizer of office drinking excursions -- even the person who hired the exotic dancer to embarrass a colleague turning 30 -- to a state of semifriendlessness. "It was painful for me because I left behind people who were my friends," he says. Looking back on it, he realizes he failed to listen to his staffers, didn't stand up to his superiors enough and became a micromanager.
It's a classic pattern. "If you get promoted, you have a lot of anxiety because you don't want people to know you're a promotion mistake," says Linda Hill, a professor of business administration at Harvard Business School who has written on the subject. The newly promoted have to prove to people that they know more so they become authoritarian and controlling, she says, and manage tasks, not people. That results, according to her research, in 80% of subordinates feeling they are being bossed around on every detail.
During his career in telecommunications, George Franks learned the hard way that familiarity can breed contempt. When a co-worker became area manager, the man would hand out assignments by day and want to go to bars or play softball with his pals by night. The real problem surfaced when the manager brought information gathered after hours to the job. He had learned, for example, that what some were calling "sick days" were actually day trips to Atlantic City, N.J., casinos or time spent with girlfriends.
The new manager's response? He dispatched Mr. Franks on a fact-finding mission whenever people were supposed to be recuperating from an illness. "I had to write up reports about what color pajamas the guy was wearing," Mr. Franks says.
当同事变成了上级...
佛朗西斯?迪龙(Francis Dillon)和医学院的一位同事以前是一对好朋友，不论在工作之外还是工作中，他们总是在一起。迪龙说：“他是那种经常给大家讲笑话逗乐的人。”
但是，在迪龙的这位朋友身上发生了一件事情，让他一夜之间出现了翻天覆地的变化。迪龙回忆说，这位朋友变得喜怒无常、咄咄逼人，而且经常“说一些很疯狂的话”。到底是什么改变了迪龙的朋友呢？原来，他被提拔到管理岗位了。
作为医院麻醉科的负责人，迪龙的这位前朋友开始试图解雇很多以前的同事。迪龙说：“和我同在一个工作隔间的同事被他解雇了五次。”迪龙自己也曾两次被定为解雇的对象。这位新经理的脸时常会涨得通红，然后摇动指头表示不满。“他会逐字逐句地说‘我将尽我所能让你们从这儿消失’，”迪龙说。在试图每周都解雇一些人之后，他偶尔也会感到非常自责。这时候他就会大加赞美同事们，但这更令人反感。
你或许会认为，曾经身处基层的人应该最能体会普通员工的感受、了解他们的需求。但是，新提拔上来的经理人很容易被权力冲昏头脑，他们虽然很熟悉自己的下属，却往往会对这些往昔的朋友十分蛮横，整天把他们偶尔的失误挂在嘴边。一边是铁拳控制，一边是甜美的友情，他们时常在两者之间摇摆不定。
对于一手提拔新经理的领导、以及现在为新经理工作的人（而不是和他们一块工作的人）而言，新经理所表现出来的自我陶醉、洋洋自得往往会让他们猝不及防。“直到你把一个人放到新的职责岗位之后，他的这种性格特质才会表现出来，”心理分析组织心理学的创始人之一亨利?莱文森(Harry Levinson)说。“人们一般都不知道到底该怎样行使手中的权力。”
除了炫耀卖弄，他们确实不知道如何处理手中的权力。乔?法里切利(Joe Farricielli)一位被提拔成经理的前同事就是一个典型的例子，他对下属呼来唤去，而且错误地认为这就是领导的表现。在医疗护理教育机构工作的卡罗兰?威萨尔(Carolan Wishall)一位新获提拔的同事也犯了同样的错误，她总要确保所有提到她名字的备忘录中都写明她的新职务，而且她经常走到走廊里要求秘书立即做这做那。威萨尔说：“自我炫耀并不能成为众人的焦点。”
对于管理新手来讲，理解这样的道理已经够难了：真正的权力来自于人格魅力和个人影响，而非职务头衔或者让你从底层脱颖而出的其他小权力。但对于一个经理来讲，领导自己曾是其中一员的团队则更加艰难。正是由于这样做有相当的风险，因此在军队中，一名被提拔的军官会从他原来所在的部门调出，这样的话，下属们就不必见证新军官艰难的转变了，退役陆军上校帕特里克?托夫勒(Patrick Toffler)说，“这些规则都是从惨痛的经验教训中得来的。”
至少有一些新经理已经意识到他们行事方法的可怕之处。肯?艾伦(Ken Allen)在25岁的时候获得升职，来领导一群比他更有经验的人员。在抵制他领导的下层人员和对他不断施压的上层领导的夹缝中，他说“我觉得自己像一个在高高的草丛中被丢弃的小球。”
他曾经是办公室畅饮旅行颇受欢迎的组织者－－他甚至还恶作剧般地请来艳舞女郎为刚满30岁的同事庆祝生日，但是他很快就发生了转变，开始和同事保持距离了。他说：“我已经被曾经是朋友的同事们疏远了，这令我感到痛苦。”在回顾这一段经历的时候，他意识到以前他对下属的意见倾听不够，同时又没有经得住上层领导的考验，他成了一个微不足道的小经理了。
这是个典型的模式。哈佛商学院(Harvard Business School)工商管理教授琳达?希尔(Linda Hill)曾就这个课题进行了研究，她说：“当人们被提拔后，就产生很多焦虑，因为你不想让别人认为提拔你是个错误。”她说，刚被提拔的人不得不向别人证明他懂得比其他人多，因此他会变得专横、控制欲强，事必躬亲，忽略了对人的管理。根据她的调查显示，这种行为会导致80%的下属感到他们在工作的每个细节上都受到控制。
在其电信行业的职业生涯中，乔治?弗兰克斯(George Franks)亲身体验到上下级之间过于熟悉会助长下属对上级权威的藐视。在他的同事被提拔为区域经理后，这位同事希望白天给大家分配任务，晚上还能和他们一起泡吧或打垒球。当他把下班后从下属那里获得的信息放到工作上时，真正的问题出现了。比如，他了解到一些人所谓的“病假”其实是去新泽西州大西洋城旅行，或去娱乐场所消遣，或与女朋友待在一起。
这位新经理的反应如何呢？只要有人请病假，他就让弗兰克斯去一探究竟。弗兰克斯说：“我必须在报告中详细写明休病假的那个家伙穿著什么颜色的睡衣。”
