You Might Be a Bosshole® IF: You Fail to Recognize the Trends That Seriously Impact Engagement Artwork

The Bosshole® Chronicles

Never waste a good opportunity to learn from a bad boss. Our guests and Subject Matter Experts share their stories about challenging, difficult, and even mean bosses that they have had through their careers. Hosts Sara Best and John Broer explore what happened, what made the relationship difficult, and even the role WE play in our Bosshole experiences. More importantly, we apply some of our insight and analysis around behavioral science and emotional intelligence so that we (and managers listening in) can learn from the experiences and avoid common Bosshole® Blunders. If you have questions or stories you want to share, contact us at info@realgoodventures.com

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The Bosshole® Chronicles

You Might Be a Bosshole® IF: You Fail to Recognize the Trends That Seriously Impact Engagement

February 05, 2025

Could you be unwittingly venturing into Bosshole® territory without even knowing it? Tune in to our latest series, "You Might Be a Boss Hole If," where I team up with my good friend and business partner, Sara Best, to explore the subtle yet significant behaviors that may be affecting your team's engagement.

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John Broer: 0:10

You know it's been about four and a half years that we've been talking about Bosshole transformation and Bosshole prevention. Well, we want to bring you something new on the Bosshole Chronicles, and that is a series of episodes called You Might Be a Bossh ole If... So, today, for all of our listeners out there in The Bossh ole Transformation Nation, I am going to be joined by none other than my good friend and business partner, Sara Best, and we're going to kick this series off to really focus on specific things that managers and supervisors may be doing or not doing which could indicate that they may be in The Boss hole Zone. So just a heads up to keep watch for these episodes that we're going to be dropping in here and there between our standard episodes. But again, listen in and just understand, you might be a Boss hole if...

John Broer: 1:12

The Bossh ole Chronicles are brought to you by Real Good Ventures, a talent optimization firm helping organizations diagnose their most critical people and execution issues with world-class analytics. Make sure to check out all the resources in the show notes and be sure to follow us and share your feedback. Enjoy today's episode.

John Broer: 1:35

Well, welcome everybody out there in the Bossh ole Transformation Nation. We are introducing a brand new segment to the Bossh ole Chronicles and this is called "you Might Be a Boss Hole, If I'm going to give full credit to. Maybe we need some new bumper music just for this particular one.

John Broer: 1:53

Yes, so, Sara, actually I think it was your idea hey, you might be a Boss hole if, and then let's just talk about that, and so this is also a great opportunity for all of you out there to share some ideas about. You might be a Bosshole if. But, Sara, what's our first one? You might be a Bosshole if...

Sara Best: 2:13

John, you might be a Bosshole if you are not paying attention to the trends inside your organization affecting your employee engagement.

Sara Best: 2:25

What do we mean by that? Well, we always define engagement as a person bringing their whole self to the work. My heart, my passion, my interest, my discretionary effort. I'm plugged in, I'm tuned in and tapped on. So you might be a Boss hole if you are not aware of the things that are impacting engagement in your organization.

John Broer: 2:46

Okay, so what are some of the key- We're not going to go into depth here because, guess what? We have an episode coming up with all of the members of the Real Good Ventures team to talk about that, and specifically about the most recent Gallup results. But what would you say are some of the key trends that you know managers have to pay attention to, and if they're not, they might be a Boss hole. What are those?

Sara Best: 3:09

Well, I don't want to sound like a broken record, John, because we've talked about these many times. But, first and foremost, clarity of expectations.

John Broer: 3:15

Okay.

Sara Best: 3:16

Less than half of the employees in the Gallup survey indicated they had clarity day to day on the expectations of their role, and that's an easy thing to fix. It really truly is. The next one is feeling like somebody cares about you at work. We've talked about people-centered leadership, people-first kind of leadership, and the third idea, the third trend we're seeing in the most recent data, is someone encouraging an employee's development, like what are you interested? What are your strengths? Where do you want to go? What's available to you in this organization? As simple as they are, I know they're challenging and complex, and we'll add to that, John, that we're going to provide some practical things that managers and leaders can do right now to address issues of engagement.

John Broer: 4:02

There is no reason. These are so solvable and, like you said, we've talked about these, but these are so solvable. If you are not paying attention to these three things and are prepared to act on them immediately and resolve them, then you might be a Boss hole.

Sara Best: 4:17

So again, tune in, but remember we believe no one was born to be a Boss hole.

John Broer: 4:22

Absolutely not

Sara Best: 4:23

No accidental Boss hole, Boss holes out there.

John Broer: 4:26

All right, so keep checking back for the you might be a Boss hole episodes. Check back for the episode coming up on the Gallup study. It's going to be awesome, Sara. Thank you.

Sara Best: 4:36

You betcha, John, stay well.

John Broer: 4:41

Thanks very much for checking out this episode of the Bossh ole Chronicles. It was so good to have you here, and if you have your own Bossh ole story that you want to share with the Bossh ole Transformation Nation, just reach out. You can email us at mystory@thebossholechronicles. com. Again, mystory@thebossholechronicles. com, we'll see you next time.