What If You Could Re-Elect Your Boss?

A while ago a boss of yours truly quipped, “This is not a democracy.”

That is, to put it into context,  several managers were making a hiring decision on a new managerial colleague and one of our direct reports provided us with her unsolicited thoughts.

That prompted the director to rebuke her comment even though the employee did indeed point out something insightful the managers had missed.

But, is that such a bad idea after all? What if we could get employees to interview their potential boss and provide feedback? What are the ramifications of having a democratic-like hiring process or annual review process?

As inspired by Election Day, what if a boss was given a timeline, let’s say one year, and then got “re-elected” into “office” after a year during the annual performance review time frame? Granted,...