Is your boss the most influential person at your job? Do you trust your boss? Does your boss take care of their employees’ core needs the same way they treat their partners’ core needs?
If you answered ‘YES’ to all these questions, then your boss has strong leadership skills. But in that case, it would have been called a leader, not a boss.
When it comes to the boss of an organization, you probably think of that person who has the power, who doesn’t treat everyone the same way, who doesn’t care about feelings, and whom you are usually afraid of speaking to because you may get punished in case you are saying something wrong.
For all these reasons and many more, we’re not following our boss.
The only thing a boss cares about is the growth of the business. Which, in other words, means money. In fact, there are bosses who care about money so much, they use their employees as tools. In nasty corporations, with a bunch of illegal activities going on, a boss will have you sign a paper of a sketchy contract just so they can have someone to blame when things go sideways.
Why would anyone follow such a person?
On the other hand, when it comes to your second home (your job) you probably want to feel that your ideas are taken into consideration, you want to feel safe, and you want to be able to grow. But all these things are the result of an environment influenced by a leader, not domesticated by a boss.
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5 Core Needs Your Boss Won’t Provide You
Wouldn’t it be amazing if you would be able to wake up every day with the feeling that you’re about to change the world? Wouldn’t it be great to have a place where we could impact the things that we’re doing?
For sure, it would be wonderful. But before being able to do all these things, we need to find a place where our work is valued, we feel safe, have freedom, grow constantly, and everyone is treated as equal.
1. You want your boss to value your work
In a place where people care about money, work is never valued.
If you take a good look at what money is, you’ll soon realize that money is just the result of one’s action. If you decide to buy a car so you can deliver food to companies, you’ll make money as a result of that.
In an environment where people prioritize making money more than anything else, work is never valued.
Why? Simply because people will only pay attention to the result of whatever work you’re doing, not to the effort behind you’re working. A boss will never be able to value your work as long as they value money more than anything else.
2. You want your boss to provide a safe environment
Safe could mean without violence or abuse. But, at the same time, safe means having the certainty that you get your salary at the end of the month.
Even more than that, being part of a safe environment means sharing a strong vision with those you’re working with. If those who are part of an organization are not aligned with the same vision and everyone is going in different directions, soon enough there will be chaos.
Being part of a safe environment means knowing where you’re going and having the certainty that where you’re going in the right place.
3. You want your boss to give you freedom
For some people, having the freedom to do what they want is more than important than having a big salary. For most people, being able to do things their way is an important aspect of their growing process.
When you’re part of an environment where your boss is constantly telling you what to do and how to do it, you’ll eventually reach a point where your brain will be so inactive, it will die. As a result of that, you won’t be able to perform and you may end up even losing your job.
This is a well-known paradox – your boss doesn’t want to give you the freedom to do your job (one of the most common core needs) because they believe their methods are the best methods and, at the same time, they want you to grow and perform. I’m sorry, that’s not possible.
4. You want your boss to invest in what’s relevant to your career development
As I mentioned before, your boss is mostly focused on how to make money. Therefore, they may care less about how much you develop. Even if your development is important for making more money, your boss may care less if your development requires money.
What most bosses don’t understand is this: business = people.
There’s no such thing as business to business simply because a business is run by people. But because this is hard to understand, a boss will always focus on how to improve the business, not the people that run the business.
5. You want your boss to treat you as he treats himself
This will never happen. You’ll never see employees having big offices. You’ll never see employees eating at the same table with a boss.
A boss treats his employees as if they are different and therefore, they should be treated differently. But the only difference is in the responsibilities. Other than that, everybody is there to do their job and everybody should follow the same vision. In a way, those who are part of the same organization are the same and should be treated the same way.
All these things will never be provided by a boss
A boss will never value your work because they don’t care about your work. They care about the result of your work.
A boss will never provide you with a safe environment. A safe environment is one they usually can’t manipulate or control.
A boss will never give you freedom because having freedom represents a threat to the authority your boss has. If there’s a threat to the status of your boss, they’ll do their best to eliminate it.
A boss will never invest in what’s relevant to your career. To do that, you’ll need to know how to negotiate your development and make it the most valuable thing for making more money.
A boss will never treat you as he treats himself. After all, you’re not the boss. In case you want all these 5 core needs at your work, then you should look for someone who can provide them. And that’s a leader.
How many of these core needs are taken care of at your job? Have you ever felt like you wanted to change your job because of at least one of these core needs?
With love and optimism,
David