I'm the 'Cool' Boss and It's Not Working 7 | 19

Hello everybody and welcome to the Radical Canner podcast. I'm Kim Scott. I'm Jason Rosoff and today we're tackling a question from the Career Advice subreddit. The person who wrote in and identifies himself as a, quote, nice and cool boss, but quote, in a bad way. This person wants to know how to become more strict.

After having established this easy to get along with persona, I'll read a little bit of what they wrote. Quote, so I'm a production supervisor and I've recently gotten into hot water because my boss says I am not respected by the employees because I'm too nice and worried about being cool. I'm not saying they are wrong, they are right. But when I went into the position with the mindset that if I'm relatable, the employees would like me and go to bat for me.

They do that occasionally, but they also slack off nonstop and all seem unconcerned about me getting in trouble. How can I break this mindset for both myself and the employees? Because I really struggle with being stricter and meaner, but I feel like if I can just break the cycle, I'll be able to continue. It's that first step that's hard for me. Sincerely, cool in a bad way.

We already have this episode, so unlocking it is cheap and permanent: the full transcript (35 minutes, 5,946 words), segment and word-level timestamps, and .txt, .srt, .vtt and word-level JSON downloads, as many times as you like, forever.

No account needed, we create one from your checkout email. With credits it is 1 credit; packs start at 5 episodes for $3.49, and monthly plans are cheaper still.