Flawed Bosses

Dear HBR:

Harvard Business Review

Careers, Business/management, Work, Advice, Harvard, Help, Mentor, Workplace, Business, Management, Challenges, Entrepreneurship, Hbr, Office, Business/careers, Business/entrepreneurship

4.6 • 782 Ratings

🗓️ 1 October 2020

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Do you wish you could understand your boss better? Dan and Alison answer your questions with the help of Mimi Nicklin, a business coach and author. They talk through what to do when you have a boss who is unforgiving, who relies on you to cover their flaws, or who flip-flops between being your warm friend and cold supervisor.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Dear HBR from Harvard Business Review.
0:03.9	I'm Dan McGinn.
0:04.9	And I'm Alison Beard.
0:12.3	Work can be frustrating, but it doesn't have to be.
0:15.3	We don't need to let the conflicts get us down.
0:17.8	That's where Dear HBR comes in.
0:19.9	We take your questions, look at the research,
0:22.5	talk to the experts, and help you move forward.
0:32.6	Today we're talking about flawed bosses with Mimi Nicklin. She's a business coach,
0:37.3	and her new book is
0:38.1	softening the edge, empathy, how humanity's oldest leadership trait is changing our world. Mimi,
0:44.2	thanks for coming in the show. You're so welcome. Thank you very much for having me. So when you
0:48.7	think about empathy, do you think it's more important for bosses or for subordinates?
0:56.5	Oh, I think it's more important for humanity.
1:00.9	So I think whoever you are, whatever position you're in, this is a key skill.
1:02.5	It's a key part of who we are as people.
1:10.2	Do you think that people are naturally empathetic or it's something that's sort of coachable, trainable develops over time?
1:12.4	Actually, it's both of those.
1:14.1	It is something that we're all born with.
1:17.9	Evolution developed it within our brains and the prefrontal cortex.
1:21.0	However, because of that, it's also a skill.
1:26.7	So just like cooking or gardening, empathy is a skill that once you practice, you become better at.
	...

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