Being Boss is Hard the Emotional Side of being in Charge

Abstract

After this brief discussion with the school board chairman, I realized that there was absolutely no reason for me to stay. ... I went back to my of fice and prepared a resignation. I had no job in mind, but I knew I could no longer work in this district with its board of education. They had violated every principle I knew in protecting children. I was emotionally spent mostly because of what happened to these kids. Now, I had no relationship with the board, and I had no job. ... I am a Vietnam veteran who saw my share of misery and suffering, but those experiences, no matter how awful they were, don't compare to the disgusting feelings I still have about this incident. --A small-district superintendent (1) Principals, superintendents, deans, provosts, presidents, CEOs, all leaders make decisions that affect programs and people. They hire and fire, evaluate and assess, raise pay, cut pay, make budgets, slash budgets, start new programs, eliminate old ones. Being in charge carries a wide array of responsibilities and burdens, but it also places people in a position to have an incredible impact. So it shouldn't be surprising that so many aspire to being boss because of the power, prestige, potential for making a difference, and, for some, the added financial remuneration. Being boss can be very seductive. Research on leadership is beginning to examine a side of the work that has been ignored for years. An inevitable part of being a leader is that some decisions are very hard to make. That isn't very surprising. But a curious reality is that few, if any, leaders are prepared for the emotional side of making hard decisions. Much like death and taxes, such decisions can't be avoided, yet leaders are left to their own sensibilities in trying to deal with the emotional fallout of making decisions that directly affect people or challenge their personal values. Naturally, the emotional side of leadership makes being the boss far more difficult than most leaders ever imagined. As aerospace engineer, corporate leader, and novelist Nevil Shute explained in his autobiography: I think this is the most miserable part of being the managing director of a growing company. One by one, I had to replace our earliest supporters. ... It is a process which is inevitable in a growing business and which takes much of the fun out of it, so that after a few years of sacking one's old friends, one grows to feel that success may not be such a good thing after all, that possibly there may be other, less sorry ways of earning a living in this world. When success ultimately came to Airspeed, I was ready to leave the company, having come to the conclusion that I didn't much like my job. (2) Why is the emotional side of leadership so troubling? Primarily because having to deal with these work-evoked emotions is a little secret that is kept very hush-hush. No professional courses in educational leadership delve into this aspect of being in charge. No state licensure requirements for educational leaders even mention this in their standards. It is as if such emotions don't exist or, if they do, the implication is that they are simple to deal with or something that should be avoided. But just as the Tom Hanks character complained in the movie, A League of Their Own, there's no crying in baseball, there is no allowance for crying by the person we call boss. Leaders, after all, are strong. They have to show the right face, and that means not displaying emotions. But reality is something else. Leaders are human. They continually face emotion-laden situations, and they often agonize over decisions and worry incessantly about the repercussions of what they decide. Head over to your state's administrators' meeting and you'll overhear principals and superintendents sharing their personal war stories. I attend several meetings of deans of education each year and can assure you that when we get together, we often ventilate about emotionally charged situations. …