I love this column, when I’m invited to participate in it, I go back to my days as a dreamer, I look inside myself for motivations and inspirations that made me get here.
So, to get lost in this world of memories of things and people that have inspired me in life, it’s very easy. Fertile field!
So I chose to bring here, in the form of a tribute, an aged figure, “the boss”, exchanged for the politically correct, leader, the one you are subordinate to and could change your life depending on the mood you woke up.
This “entity”, a feared figure (kkkk) and respected for sure, something also taught you and inspired you, even if you didn’t fully agree with his methods and thoughts.
I’m 51 years old, I’ve had several bosses, different from each other, men, women, calm, tough, thoughtful, crazy, creative, methodical, I think I’m a patchwork of them all. Of course, I try to bring with me only the good teachings, but I don’t know for sure if this is the absolute truth.
Sometimes we get the hang of it without even realizing it.
There is always a job of self-analysis, I say that we are not what we think we are, we are what we can show to the world, this must be training, I learned this from a boss who said and exemplified, “a good teacher is not what he knows more, but what manages to teach what he knows”.
Disagreements?
Always, with them, new teachings, new theories and inspirations!
Another lesson learned from a boss that I still carry with me when I build teams is: “I’d rather hold the madman than push the fool” and, in fact, I really prefer, taking all the risks that the “crazy” brings with him.
It is easier to correct attitudes than not to have them. Professional lessons we bring to life.
I remember that when I started to participate in large meetings with clients, where we discussed their problems and looked for ways, ideas popped into my head, incredible ideas and I gave them right away, on the spot, and because they seemed so easy, they weren’t taken so seriously at first.
Then a great boss, who taught me a lot, told me: “you have great ideas, they come easily to your head, cherish them waiting for the right time to share them.” This really changed my life!
Another boss, “a boss”, very crazy, who called me “boy” in front of customers, made me embarrassed because it seemed like she didn’t even know my name, who in the presentations made faces so that we would go faster already on the second slide, created a personality in me, whoever went through it is ready for the world.
I left there valuing simply being called by my name, funny, but learnings that inspire me to be a better person, a better boss than she was!
There was another who liked chaos. His tranquility stood out at these times, so I learned to work with anxiety and look for ways out in times of war, amazing that they really appear, with him the phrase was: “problems are the fuel of creativity, if you manage!”
For me, bosses have always been inspiring, even those who never became leaders.
I’ve been the boss of a lot of people, I hope I led many, but what would make me really happy is to have managed to inspire as much as these bosses inspired me!
To all of you, thank you very much!
Wagner Zaratin is managing partner of SolutiOnOff
