What kind of marketing boss are you?

I read an article today, “Three Types of Bosses That Should Be Fired”, that I encourage all marketing managers to read. Having held various marketing leadership positions during my career, I read this article from two perspectives: have I been one of the bosses, or have I had a boss like one described in the article? If I’m honest, the answer is “yes” and “yes”.

Here’s a summary of the three types the article describes:

1. The smartest guy in the room
2. It’s all about me
3. The has-been

My attention was drawn to the first type listed – the smartest guy (or gal) in the room. Think about how hard it is for good marketers to not become this person. At the risk of generalizing, marketers are confident, outgoing, risk-tolerant, creative people. When we’re firing on all cylinders and really making things happen, it’s easy to feel pretty good about who we are and what we bring to the table. Of course, we’re just one failed campaign or strategy removed from humility. But we’re also resilient, so we bounce back pretty quickly most of the time. When we’re achieving great results, I think we must work hard at not coming across like we’re the sole reason for the successes we help create. Without some mechanism to keep our ego in check, we can become the smartest person in the room without realizing it has happened.

Now, lets look at the other side of this table. Most marketing professionals know what it’s like to serve under the smartest guy in the room. We bring our education, experience and creativity to an organization where we practice our craft only to hear things like “I’m not crazy about that font” or other petty criticisms from those who don’t know the difference between a brand and a logo, or who think marketing equals advertising. I’m sure this experience is not unique to marketing professionals, but this behavior seems quite at home in the marketing department. So how do you cope with this? It’s bearable if your smartest-guy-in-the-room manager truly is a genius whose instincts are right on 99.9% of the time. But how often does that happen?

I’ve formed some strong opinions in my 28-year marketing career, and this post reflects some of them. I hope it will spark some debate and commentary, so to my fellow marketing professionals I ask: what has been your experience been? And, what have you done about it?

Jerry Rackley
VP of Marketing & Product Development
jerry@demandmetric.com