There’s a piece of advice I give at least once to every person I mentor:
“Your job is only as good as your boss.”
Most people agree with me and then there’s those that know its the only fact that matters.
This is the first in a series of posts about the managers who shaped me. Not the cautionary tales as we’ve all collected enough of those. These are the ones who got it right, often without recognition, and for some of them, their influence didn’t stop just because I stopped reporting to them.
Knowing How You Work
Before I talk about the first individual, a little context helps.
I’m wired to fill gaps. I walk into a role, scan for what’s missing or broken or quietly given up on, and I go fix it. A year into a job, rarely I’m in the role I was hired for because something more necessary has surfaced and I convinced management it’s worth it to let me do it instead. For the right manager, that’s a gift. For the wrong one, it’s a headache.
I am a master at reading patterns and sometimes uncomfortably early. This includes understanding the patterns that I bring into the workplace. Knowing this about yourself matters, because it shapes everything- including which environments let you thrive, which ones grind you down, and which bosses will bring out your best.
Steve Ridley was one of the best and the boss that I’m going to start this series with.
eToys, KB Toys, and a DBA Odd Couple
For just over 2 years, I worked at KB Toys, supporting their Oracle data warehouse and SQL Server systems. My colleague Terry Riddle handled the OLTP Oracle side and avoided the other systems as much as humanly possible. We were oil and water, where Terry was quiet, methodical, content to stay in his lane; I was constantly stretching, redesigning, tuning, taking on more than was probably reasonable. Terry had been at the company for eight years vs. my two, and yet we balanced each other perfectly and Steve knew that was going to happen when he hired me away from my previous employer. I’d take on the world and Terry would catch the details I blew past, while I would speak up in rooms and manage the chaos Terry preferred to avoid. Details like pages at night wouldn’t bother Terry, while I had little patience for anything but no downtime and wanted to sleep. We were each other’s yin and yang, creating an incredible database environment harmony that served the organization well.
Steve gave us both the space to operate that way. He didn’t try to flatten us into the same shape and that gift to a team is rarer than it sounds.
The Conversation I Didn’t See Coming
It was early December 2008. The real estate crash was rippling through retail. I could see the numbers deteriorating, as I’m the one that moved the end-of-year sales data to compressed partitions, so I could see the problems as clear as accounting, but I believed in the company and hoped we could recover.
Steve called me into his office. He asked if I’d been following the company’s outlook, which I said yes. He asked if I was looking for a new job, but I got emotional and I told him I was in it for the long haul. He stopped me mid-sentence. Calmly and directly, he said: “Kellyn, you NEED to start looking for a new job today.”
That moment, in which Steve choose honesty over comfort, at personal cost to himself, is one of the clearest examples of genuine leadership I’ve ever experienced. It would have been easier to say nothing. He said the hard thing anyway, because it was what I needed.
The company folded three weeks later.
The Part That Proves the Point
You might think the story ended there, but after KB Toys closed, most of us stayed connected through the early days of social media. We all continued to communicate online and meet for happy hours, coordinated through Facebook and Twitter, while Terry didn’t, so most lost touch with him after the company dissolved.
Almost a year later, I found myself suddenly out of work after a consulting gig went sideways, (this was documented in the article, “The high cost of accepting a low salary”) when I got a call from a company interested in interviewing me. I walked in, sat down in the conference room, and noticed a name written across the whiteboard in several places: Terry.
Before I could process it, Terry Riddle walked in.
What happened is Terry had called Steve to let him know he was looking. Steve, still keeping tabs on both of us, saw that I was available via social media and sent Terry my resume. Two people who used to work for him, reconnected and rehired through a network he quietly maintained. Terry and I worked together at this new company for 3 more years. Until recent years, I had always thought the company had come across my resume on their own and that it was a fluke that Terry had just happened to work there.
Steve had no obligation to make the recommendation or send over my resume. We weren’t his employees anymore, but he did it anyway.
What Good Bosses Actually Do
Good bosses don’t just create good working environments. They build something that outlasts the org chart.
They know you well enough to tell you what you don’t want to hear. They give you room to work in the way you are most productive. And when you’ve moved on, even when there’s nothing in it for them, they’re still in your corner.
That’s the bar and Steve Ridley is one of those bosses that cleared it.
This is the first of many, highlighting when bosses get it right. Let me know if it resonates and if you have a story you’d like to share in the comments.
