Dictate or Dedicate, you can’t have both

Tim Chan
2 min readMar 31, 2020

--

Is your boss a dictator? What do you picture a dictator in your head? Some says that a top down structure can easily destroy the morale of the team.

Sometimes, the opposite can be equally devastating: Working for a boss that doesn’t know what he wants. On the surface, he might seem very reasonable and nice to ask his colleagues to consider all possible options.

When the team came back with a direction, the boss is still not sure.

That is not a true dedication.

I am talking about the kind of boss that allows you to do things the way you want — at least on the surface — but deep down, he already has a preference.

After a while, you shut off your brain because you know someone higher up will decide things for you.

Ask your team and they will probably tell you that they would prefer you to dictate it. Saying you are Open to option but you prefer option x doesn’t help anyone.

You are now playing the guessing game.

In this environment, you breed a culture of “poking for direction”. Instead of coming up with a solution to the problem, the game becomes testing what the boss truly wants. The team no longer has the business’s best interest in mind.

It is better to tell your team “I don’t know where we should go with this, but I will trust you to make the right call”. Or “I know where we are heading with this, and I want you guys to prove to me that I am correct.”

Be a dictator or be a democrat, but you can’t have both.

--

--

Tim Chan
Tim Chan

Written by Tim Chan

Senior Product Designer @EA. I teach designers the softskills to get them promoted. Based in Vancouver, came from Hong Kong

No responses yet