When I was 20 years old, I was living in Colorado Springs, CO. I worked for a guy named Dave Vanderwhite and he might have been the best boss I ever had.
Part of the reason he was the best was because working with Dave was never boring. He was an electrician, owned a few rental properties, and had a small business refurbishing antique lamps and selling them to antique stores.
Every day my work was a little different. I could be pulling wire in a new house, rebuilding a deck on one of the rentals, rewiring brass sconces, or any other number of tasks.
My official title was “helper” and I got introduced as such when meeting his customers or other tradesmen on a site. As a helper, I got all the shit jobs that Dave didn’t want to do. I climbed ladders well beyond their safety recommendation, I crawled under gnarly old houses, I was in the attics in the middle of summertime, and I was always the one running back and forth to the truck to grab parts.
I loved that job. Not because I love crawl spaces or being scared out of my wits on an over-extended ladder, but because Dave was good to me. He always made sure I was OK, he made sure I had enough money, on the days he didn’t have work for me, he would loan me out to other tradesmen so I didn’t miss a day's wages.
Dave was also a teacher. He taught me how to do electrical work, carpentry, and nurtured my interest in rehabbing antique lamps. Working with Dave was a never-ending learning experience.
Thought Experiment: Think about your favorite boss or colleague ever. This could’ve been in your most recent role or a job you had in high school. What was it about that person that made working with them so fun or fulfilling? What was it they did that made working so enjoyable?
Chances are, they were easy to be around. You looked forward to seeing them (or at least you didn’t dread seeing them). Maybe they made you laugh or inspired you in some way. They were likely trustworthy and always willing to give you a hand if you needed help.
If you reflect over the years, I’m sure you’ve noticed that your favorite people to work with are typically kind, generous, good listeners, and often exceptionally good at what they did for a living. They don’t gossip, speak disrespectfully to you, or try to manipulate others. They encourage inclusion and participation, and their ideas feel fresh and creative. They are also apt to do the repair work when they make a mistake and are more likely to forgive when wronged by others.
I don’t mean to say these folks are perfect (no one is), but these are usually the type of people that are willing to take a good hard look at themselves and make corrections when necessary. This is what I call doing “the work.”
Have you ever thought about these former colleagues and co-workers and wished you could be a little more like them? Did you just assume that this was the personality they were born with, therefore unavailable to you?
What if you could be someone’s favorite person to work with? What if you were the person that your co-workers bragged about to their friends or significant others when they got home from work? What if you inspired the best in others by adopting and practicing some of the same behaviors you’ve seen modeled by your favorite colleagues?
Behaviors like kindness, generosity, curiosity, humility, humor, creativity, and explicit inclusivity. This isn’t an exhaustive list of the qualities we admire in others, but it’s a start.
After working with Dave, I started to adopt some of his behaviors. I tried not to take work too seriously and remembered to laugh as often as possible. Later in life, as a leader, I took an interest in my team's personal lives as well as what they were working on.
Yes, I can still install a light switch or an outlet, but the more important takeaways from my time with Dave are how I treat others — whether they are employees, colleagues, or clients.
What behaviors have you adopted from your favorite colleagues and co-workers? And maybe more importantly, what behaviors would you like to start embodying so you might be someone's favorite person to work with?
I hope this doesn’t sound like I’m suggesting we should behave inauthentically in order for people to like us. What I am saying is that being someone's favorite person to work with is likely a good sign that we’re on the right path to being great leaders and human beings.