24 of 50

Once again welcome to new subscribers, it’s great to have you here. Please do check out the archives, as this is Fifty from Fifty, which is where I am recounting 50 things – memories, stories, musings, missives from my half-century of life, and we are nearly at the halfway point, so soon there will be more stories behind us than in front of us.

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In 2015 I became self-employed, after twenty plus years of being someone’s employee. In some ways it’s better working for yourself; in other ways not so much. When I first took the step another self-employed consultant who’d done some work for me, told me that – “It’s all feast or famine” – basically meaning that you’re either working flat out or not at all. Fundamentally there are times that I’d say that adage is true, but also times where you have just enough work to get by, but are wondering whether you have enough to continue being a viable business, next week or next month.

The one thing I don’t have any more is a boss, and I am no longer anyone else’s boss. I miss neither of these things. I’d like to think that I was a good boss to my employees, and beyond just my direct reports, but I guess you’d have to ask them to get an honest assessment. I do however know that I have had bosses that have been both good and bad.

It’s funny, when I started writing this I tried to note down a list of all the bosses or line managers that I’ve had. The outliers were easy to remember, those that were either very good or very bad, those who occupied the centre ground were much harder to remember. There were also some who on the surface appeared to be good, but actually were probably looking more at their own careers than mine.

Some were enablers and promoters, others blockers and idea thieves, some were empowerers and others micromanagers.

I had one who was an outright bully, and ultimately I arrived at the decision to leave the organisation who I worked for because of him.

All of my bosses shaped my own managerial style though. I was determined to be as good or better than my good managers and never to exhibit or behave in the ways that the bad ones did. A pretty good ethos, which served me well.

After seven years being self-employed I’m occasionally asked if I miss being a manager. The short answer is I don’t miss the pay and rations bit – the approving leave requests, signing off on expenses claims and all the other admin tasks that are a necessary part of being a manager. I do however miss the coaching and training elements, empowering and support staff and watching them grow. There are former employees who I see in their careers now that are successful and great managers in their own right and I maybe had a small part in helping to get them where they are and that’s a good thing.

Would I go back? Maybe. Never say never. I’d like it to be for the right reasons though and not because self-employment became a total famine and I had no option. It would be nice for it to be a choice for the right reasons and not because I had to do it.

Thanks for reading.

Next week we hit 25 of 50, the halfway point. I have a post I’ve been saving for a special occasion, an unusual love story from many years ago. Until next week!