“In the past a leader was a boss. Today’s leaders must be partners with their people… they no longer can lead solely based on positional power.” – Ken Blanchard

There’s a great scene in Forrest Gump where the Army Drill Instructor asks Gump what his responsibility is, and Gump replies, “To do whatever you tell me to drill sergeant.”  Of course the DI thinks Gump is a genius.

Unfortunately that’s often the perspective today’s boss has too.  They think they can make anyone do most anything they want by ordering.  They’re not only wrong, it’s a dangerous misapprehension. There’s a term for this kind of management, KITA, which stands for Kick In The A… never mind, you get the idea.

Only the very deluded think they can drive their team to greater success by snapping the whip and making all the decisions.  The landscape is dotted with people who thought they were leaders, and turned out to be bosses.  Usually they thought they were the only ones with all the ideas.  They thought they were expert leaders, when really they were strong bosses.

If you’ve ever felt demeaned, chances are you’re working with a manager, not a leader.  Sometimes they want to dominate you, but more often they just want you to do what they think is right.  Life seems very simple to these people.  They’re the Lone Ranger and you’re Tonto.

I know it’s not fun for the employee, and imagine it’s not fun for the boss either.  Ordering people around doesn’t really work and is followed by frustration.  In real life you need to be more like John Wooden and less like a boss.

“Emotional roller coasters tend to emphasize the lows, tend to be more affected by the low, by the dip in an emotional roller coaster than when you are at the peak.” – Rush Limbaugh

Roller coasters always clank and make a lot of noise as they haul you, and everyone else in the cars, up to the top for the first dip.  Funny how, with a roller coaster, it’s the dip everyone looks forward to, and they relax as they build for a drop again.  Unfortunately, we don’t see that happen with ratings with the same delight.

All it takes is for a little drop to cause gray panic, and I don’t mean screaming in delight either.

Which is too bad, because those ups and downs that come with a roller coaster are are part of life too.  Up is never straight up, it’s always up and down over time, but up overall.  When you look at your ratings over a longer period of time, like Nielsen suggests, you can tell if it’s a trend or fluctuation.  Reacting in the short term produces the reality of self-fulfilling prophecy – that most radio stations die from the inside, not the outside.

I guess the moral of the story is this: If you want to crash your station in the quickest, most efficient way, focus on the fluctuations, especially the down ones like Rush says.  Rattle your troops, shake the unshakable, confuse the future, and paint yourself into a “reactionary” corner.  If you want to continue to grow, have a little maturity and understand the ups and downs of Nielsen and life, and be the one that stays on focus.