Our rotating boss system
There's a popular saying that people don't quit their jobs; they quit their bosses.
According to this Gallup article, "One in two employees have left a job to get away from a manager and improve their overall life at some point in their career, according to Gallup's State of the American Manager report."
A great job can feel like a terrible one when a bad boss is involved. This can look like unnecessary stress or fear, feeling undervalued or undermined, and running into dead ends. An employee's relationship with their boss can be vital for both their career success and well-being.
This is a curious aspect to explore for the orchestra, where musicians can have a different boss each week.
Even with a music director in place, it is typical to have many guest conductors fill a professional orchestra's season. Musicians regularly work with a different conductor each week. When programs overlap, they could be working with multiple conductors at the same time. This is the norm and not the exception.
When we really think about it, it's crazy to imagine that this is the average orchestral musician's experience - to have a different boss so often that's actually built into the work environment!
Each conductor has their own personality, agenda, vision, communication style, social and cultural background, etc. Before musicians have the time to fully understand and adjust to one conductor, the relationship is over. And that relationship has no chance to improve and grow.
This environment sets musicians up to develop incredible resilience and flexibility. It also presents the challenge of career whiplash without even changing jobs. Having a different boss each week can look like going from:
Feeling safe to extreme fear
High comfort to high frustration
Feeling valued to feeling mistreated
Feeling lifted to feeling used
High self-esteem to low self-esteem
Clear sense of purpose to lack of meaning
As people, we need adequate consistency in our relationship with our bosses. We need consistent clarity. We need stable comfort. We need regular trust, safety, support, and care. We need to be seen for these human needs.
So our rotating boss system can be exhausting week after week.
I wonder: is this system doing us more harm than good? Maybe it's worth rethinking. And if it can't change, maybe it's worth considering how we can mitigate the adverse effects on our musicians.
This begins with recognizing that this could potentially be a problem.
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