Is it just me, or do many LL5s act very pretentious, often like a "queen bee"?
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Or “king bee” - had an LL5 who had this mentality and is now a director, unfortunately.
The good ole boys at work
Attended that morning meeting for 30 years. It was always a trip watching the facial expressions on the new hires attending their first morning meeting. One sincerely asked if the participants originally worked in the plants. He thought from their behavior they might not of even graduated from high school.
The meeting after the morning meeting was coffee with a kick in the cafeteria.
My LL6 was exactly this to me: "outstanding leaders, and extracted everything they could out of people in a positive way that made you feel appreciated and valued." just as somebody else here posted. But I could tell he was practicing how to turn this behavior on and off so that he could use different management styles. This is a good leader, but he was very much in-it-for-himself. My work really does seem to be all about helping his career, his network's career.
The yelling, swearing and tossing people under the bus was standard operating procedure at Ford Credit IT. There was a morning meeting where the things that went wrong were reported along with the cause. People left the meeting fuming or in tears. Everyone knew to pack into the conference room because if you weren’t there you were going under the bus and would be treated to months of 8D meetings to document the problem even if you were exonerated.
@rqv Threw temper tantrums, potty mouth, Excoriated reports in public, pitted reports against each other, big player of the blame game, massive kiss up especially to MK, constantly changed directions, routinely sent out “urgent” emails at the end of the day that he needed a response to before beginning of the next day- requiring hours of unpaid OT each evening; the next morning he was off on another tangent.
In short a bosshole.
@ufw, I too can spout random textbook lines about lean manufacturing principles and how it applies to software development and play on my phone all meeting long. Maybe I should have his spot.
True leaders stand against the status quo, if the rare breed mentioned below is unable to achieve this goal, their leadership is in doubt!
Genuinely curious, what made Lemmer a bad LL5?
Almost everything here is spot-on. Yep we really do work at the same Ford and the experiences Go across boundaries. One thing I would add is I worked for 5 LL5s in and LL 4s LL in particular, that were outstanding people, outstanding leaders, and extracted everything they could out of people in a positive way that made you feel appreciated and valued. No BS. they are out there but an extremely rare breed in the last few years.
The worst LL5 I worked for is now CIO.
jtw+14J8qA4d Spot on! You do not need both. Creation of a LL5.5. Keep some of those that are truly SMEs (Subject Matter Experts) as Specialists. Move others back down to GSRs or elimination if they really have no functional/ relevant value. We have way to many LLs that have no other value than being expert sycophants and back stabbers.
Ford Credit has one of the worse examples of this, except he is an LL4. Biggest ego and most arrogant person I've had to work with.
In my years at Ford I had one LL5 that was productive, helpful and knowledgeable about the team’s responsibilities. He would provide guidance and support if it was needed otherwise he did not micromanage. The others buried the LL6s with endless status reports, charts and meetings so they could give the appearance of knowing what was happening within their teams. That added another 15 to 20 hours to each work week. In a few positions I reported directly to a LL4 and those were the positions that allowed me to be most productive without working a 60 hour week. From my experience the LL5 layer’s primary function is to report statuses up the ladder.
I have yet to meet an LL5 who doesn’t spend the majority of their time clawing upwards. Nearly every LL5 ages dramatically in the first two years after their promotion. They gain a lot of weight, their hair greys and skin takes on aged hue.
In the LL5 position they are in a precarious spot. They have no value to any other company, and they must continue to bootlick everyone above them, while evading the knives of the other LL5 and the people below them clawing their way upward.
They shift to a new LL5 spot every 2 years so their whole goal is to make it to the next rotation without getting blamed for something major.
Eliminate the LL5 band, it is a waste. Fix the darn culture and you wouldn’t need 6 layers of ineffective management
IMHO we don’t need LL5s and LL6 both at the same time, rather get rid of of both layers and create a LL5.5ish layer reporting directly to LL4s ... save some cost. The org structure at GM is much simpler and direct.
I've run into all types. Some are useless politicians who love to make speeches. Some are professional hiders. Some want useless spreadsheets with lots of pretty colors generated daily and others are just regular people who have moved up the ladder. In my experience, the worst are the the ones with a finance background because all they care about are budgets and mostly ignore the product.
Most LL5's that I know seem very down to earth and just regular guys.
I also see a lot of LL6 that don't have a clue what's going on but are sure to collect their $150k+ salary, $17k bonus, and leased car while giving the real workers hardly any credit.