Working for super bosses is almost like getting a chance to perform on one of those talent shows on TV. Anyone can be plucked out on groomed for greatness at HCA. Under Tommy Firist, physical therapist would sometimes become over time senior executives, simply because Frist saw something that others didn't. I mean imagine that that's crazy, but that happened right or how about employee number 12 at Oracle? Unique Silly, she started out as a receptionist, but after Larry Ellison personally taught her SQL programming language. And she went on to occupy management positions in customer relations and later she started Oracles inside sales department, which of course is now a multibillion dollar operation. What super bosses give proteges and give employees and give team members? It's something quite rare in professional life. An opportunity to rebrand themselves. Think about the career of actor Ron Howard, I mean Ron Howard is pretty famous, right? Beloved by many TV watchers is Opie on the Andy Griffith show and later, of course, as Richie Cunningham in the sitcom Happy days. Ron Howard wanted to move away from acting and instead direct films enter Roger Corman. Who struck a deal whereby Howard would star in one movie was called Eat My Dust in return for the opportunity to direct another one. Grand theft auto, Corman, would get Ron Howard and his name on two properties. Ron Howard would get the opportunity to direct his first movie, and it worked. Later, Ron Howard went on to win an Academy award for best director that was the movie a beautiful mind back in 2001. And of course he's directed several other very, very well known movies, including the Academy Award winning Apollo 13. Many of us can well remember those moments when someone important saw something in us, a potential that even we may not have been aware of. Super bosses are the kind of people who are always on the lookout for that possibility. One of the most common quotes that I got from various interviews when something like this, he knew more about what we could do than we knew ourselves. You can't imagine the kind of confidence and motivation that gives you some version of that is something that I kept hearing. He knew more about what we could do than we knew, and you can't imagine the kind of confidence and motivation that gives you. I was in New York not that long ago and I was giving a speech to a group of Wall street executives. So finance executives and all the biggest banks and Wall Street folks were there. And and during the Q and A somebody stood up and he said, I don't have a question. But after listening to what you what you've been talking about, I just want to share my own story if I may and I said absolutely go ahead. And he said well when I was 27 years old. And by the way, who was this person? He was the chief HR Officer of a Fortune 50 company, a gigantic job. He had been in the operations of that company. He started in HR had been in operation and then he became the CHRO which is you know, a top five executive in a gigantic company. And he said when I was early in my career I was 27 years old, and I was working, started in HR. My boss gave me an opportunity, and he said now I know my boss is or was a super boss gave me an opportunity to move to Japan, to become the HR director in Japan. Which was a big promotion for a 27-year-old. And by the way, this was not a Japanese native, and he didn't speak the language, so you can imagine the barriers and the challenges. And as he's telling the story, he said, I thank my boss, but I told him, I'm just not ready for this. I don't speak the language etc, but make a long story short, what the boss told him, right? The boss said of course you're ready, I wouldn't be giving you this opportunity if you weren't exactly the right person for this job. And his boss said to him, one more thing, he said, I know it's going to be challenging, I have complete confidence that you're going to rise to the occasion, you will be able to do it. But during the transition as you fly out there and spend some time there, in the first several months, maybe a half a year, we'll see. I'm going to be your safety net, you can call me anytime you want, call me, be in touch if there's something you want me to, you want some feedback on. If you want me to talk to somebody, I will be that safety net, but you're going to have to figure it out and I know you will. So after a period of time I'm going to slowly remove that safety net, because you're going to be able to do it yourself, but I will be there to support you and to help you. And he's describing this finance executive, the CHRO, this whole thing, and he said you know what that job did for me? He said I created these, I had several new initiatives that I created, some of those plans were then instituted in other countries. This is a global company of course in other countries, HR practices. And then I came back to New York after several years with a big promotion and he said, you know what that made, how that made me feel. You know what that did for me, I began to feel like there's nothing I couldn't do. I mean, he said, I know that's crazy, but I started to feel like there's nothing I couldn't give me such confidence, that I could accomplish way more than I ever imagined before. And that's what these opportunity generators do. That's what a great leader can do, what a super boss leader can can do. And he remembered that story decades earlier about his own super boss. So this idea of instilling the sense of confidence by creating opportunities and supporting people, as they go after those opportunities, it's such a big thing. And I'll tell you one more thing about this, there's a big difference between men and women and how confident they are at work. And it's a pretty generalized thing, but there's now a ton of research to support this. So for example, let's say someone is told, I have a big promotion for you. I want you to go do this, and this like this story that I just shared with you. Well, the average man will say 100% I'm ready. I could do it, whether he can or not is beside the point, he's going to be ready. And the average woman is going to be guess what? More thoughtful, and going to think about it, I don't quite know and I'm not sure about that, let me think about that. And that thoughtfulness turns out to actually be a penalty down the line, because it might imply or send an implicit signal to some people that she's not ready. She doesn't really want this when in fact she does want, it's just being very thoughtful. And so a there's really a problem. And one of the reasons why there are fewer women and senior executive positions is exactly because of this confidence problem. There are of course, plenty of other reasons, including outright discrimination, but this is definitely one of them. And so if you as a leader can create this opportunity that can instill this incredible feeling among some of the women that work for you, that they can't that they can do anything. I mean, the payoff is gigantic. So this makes sense. And has a big payoff, whether it's a man or woman that you're doing it for, but maybe even more even more so for some of the women that you're that you're working with. So, the trick here is to provide a safety net, it lowers the risk for the employee for the person, but also lowers your own risk. If you're going to create that opportunity because again, you're going to make sure it doesn't end up too bad. No matter what, and hopefully it's going to end up as a home run as these examples, as these examples are that I'm sharing with you. And when you have a super boss that does that for you, you remember it, don't you? Do you remember your own super boss? If you had one, you will.
