Superbosses: Book Review

Look at the top fifty people in any industry and trace back their early years. You will soon discover that they all have worked for a common leader who had extraordinary influence in shaping their professional identity. While all leaders are expected to build businesses, the Superbosses, as the author calls them, have the ability to spot, train and develop a future generation of leaders. The author uses examples of eighteen superbosses in fields as diverse as casual dining, hospitals, comic books (Stan Lee), politics (Hillary Clinton) and special effects (George Lucas), among others.Legendary trumpeter Miles Davis is viewed as a creator of modern jazz. He developed a generation of other jazz greats like John Coltrane, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Keith Jarrett, and many others. But the Superbosses described in the book are very different from each other. The other “Miles” described in the book is Michael Miles who headed Kraft was known as a disciplined hard worker unlike Miles Davis who struggled with addiction.Superbosses seem to be able to spot talent and hire them with unconventional means. They seem to see what the person is capable of doing even when the person does not seem to know how to do it right at that moment. They look beyond conventional resumes and qualifications to look at the ability to learn. Once hired the Superbosses have their own method of transferring knowledge and wisdom. Not just know-how they seem to pass on a way of thinking and a way of life. Even as they are doing that they seem to leave room for the protégé to develop their own style. To achieve this, they will often bend the job to leverage the strengths of the new hire or help the person overcome a developmental gap.Many of them are hard to please task masters. So their protégé will often leave them to start something on their own or join another organization. But no matter where they work, the stamp of the Superboss is easily visible. The Superbosses view churn as an opportunity to hire fresh talent and stay connected to every protégé long after they have stopped working for them. The protégé will receive advice and will often go back to brainstorm with the Superboss.The book is full of ideas on how the Superbosses nurture talent the way a master craftsman develops a newbie. One big takeaway for me was that to develop people, a Superboss will often expose the protégé to a wide range of roles to build a deeper perspective of the craft. A great example of this is Roger Corman who regularly filled the positions needed for film productions with people he had hired for completely different jobs. For example, the actor Jack Nicholson worked for Corman as a writer and as a director. The opportunity to write out a film and then translate it through the medium of film has obviously shaped the craft of Jack Nicholson when it came to acting. The protégés will express their enduring affection for their Superboss in many ways. Filmaker Jonathan Demme will always give Roger Corman a cameo role of some kind in every film. Corman played the head of FBI in Demme’s Silence of the Lambs.This is a terrific read on how to spot and nurture talent. The range of Superbosses and their styles will leave you enough and more examples to choose what you think may fit in best with you. The common refrain seems to be that the Superbosses take time to know their protégé and then put them through a series of experiences that compresses their learning and development. One notable miss in my view is Peter Drucker whose thinking has spawned a host of management thinkers whose world view has been shaped by this management philosopher. Overall, a must read for all those who aspire to lead others and be a Superboss someday.---------Join me on Twitter @AbhijitBhaduriDownload the Sketchnote for your use <click here>