Wednesday, May 05, 2010

a Boss and a Leader

I read somewhere about the difference between a Boss and a Leader. Yeah I know, it sounds lame, huh?

I remember about the boss drives people and depend on authority, while the leader coaches them and depend on good will.

Why I should bring this up here? Well I am recently in charge to handle 2 provinces and require a sub-ordinate in each province. My boss (I guess you know where it’s going now) said it was my authority to recruit them because they would be directly working with me. Fair enough. So I started advertise it, selected and short-listed it. Until one day my boss said to me.

Boss : I think you should hire ‘X’ for West Java. Because he is experienced and quite good in content . What do you think?

Me: I think of someone who can speak local language, and preferable who has dealt with government official there.

Boss: But he’s good in content, you don’t have to coach him closely. About language and relationship with government, you could guide him.

Me: Has he had experience dealing with government or in advocacy field? Because that will be his main job. (I know the answer is no, because I know this guy. And no offense, he’s nice and we’re friends, but I didn’t think he’d want this kinda job)

Boss: No,but ….. (there goes her justification)

Me : Fine

Boss: Only, his salary was higher than our budget for this position. So maybe for Jakarta province you shouldn’t hire experienced person, so (s)he wouldn’t ask high salary.

I said I think about it. But I didn’t really agree with her. The day after and the day after that, he asked if I contacted X. Agitated, I called X. It’s not because I had something against him. NooOo! It’s just that to hire him, it takes somebody’s right to get better paid. I mean, they will be in the same position and I will have the same expectation toward them. But one is paid twice higher that the other. And it’s not because he’s more experience in the field, but because the boss prefer him. How’s that fair?

And how about “my authority to recruit them because they will be working directly to me” ?

Seems to me it is her authority to drive me to do what she wants.

Well, that’s what a boss does, rite?