Can we talk about managers yet?

Managers have a hard job. They really do. It’s certainly not a role that I’d like, in part, because it’s so much more than it appears, in another, because it's so weakly supported and totally overlooked when it comes to employee wellbeing.

Admittedly, at one time, 'managing' might have been an exercise in box ticking, oversight routines, and trouble shooting. It has also been a way to reward people for a good job done elsewhere and usually came with a bigger office, parking spot and perhaps more pay.

Today, being a manager is very different. The role has changed to be more about supporting, seeing, anticipating needs, and relating and less about telling, directing and ordering. Employee needs have not changed, it’s simply that we’ve figured out we can get better from everyone by making work less transactional and more relational. Science also supports it (Post 2 coming soon).

Some managers are categorically brilliant in their relational ability; they are the ones we all dream of working for. Someone who promotes, protects, and prepares you for better versions of yourself, and actually likes you as a person. Others have yet to grasp that their job is to care for, connect with, support, cheer, trust and make others feel they belong and matter. They deny these needs for others, assuming pay is enough. The surprising piece is that when managers themselves are seen, trusted, enabled and supported, they also feel, perform and do better. Others understand the new role, but have never been offered the micro-skills needed to meet these emotional needs in others. And these emotional needs, surprise, surprise, fulfil the elements of employee wellbeing.

Self-determination theory (SDT; Ryan & Deci, 2000a, 2000b) proposes that we have three basic psychological needs; they are autonomy, competence, and relatedness.

1.?????Autonomy refers to the desire to organize and shape one’s own experiences by exerting control over one’s goals. This includes choice over how tasks are completed, when, in what order, and increasingly, where and at what hour.

2.?????Competence relates to feelings of effectiveness in the completion of tasks; that is, being well trained, having the necessary equipment and/or material, relational, or time conditions, alongside liking, or preferring those tasks, and feeling satisfaction and a sense of mastery.

3.?????Relatedness involves feeling a sense of belonging with others and is based on the need to care, and be cared for. This entails positive regard and demonstrations of liking, respect, and trust from managers primarily, but organizations as a whole and colleagues too.

As individuals meet their needs to belong, exercise choice, and be good at what they do, wellbeing increases alongside improvements in performance. Much research supports SDT’s validity and efficacy across the workplace.

And so, if employee wellbeing is experienced through work and one's relationships with managers, we overlook an awful lot by making it about mental health issues (previous post here ), remote work options, or employee perks (many of the three can be helpful, but still miss the mark). There seems to be a rather glaring, obvious disconnect between what gets offered and the reasons why employees eventually leave organizations: poorly trained managers who can't (or in some cases, won't) humanly connect (See for yourself ).

We do a disservice to managers first and foremost by not enabling them with the skills they need, and secondly, to employees who are denied their psychological needs being met at work. Wellbeing is systemic in nature and the culmination of transformative daily interpersonal exchanges. Through the development of high quality connections, it is possible to teach and support managers to respectfully engage their team members via their presence, attention and positive regard. They can proactively enable their team members to do good work by resolving productivity barriers and investing in their talents. They can demonstrate trustworthiness as well as give it to others by offering scaffolded supported learning experiences, i.e., "why don’t you take over this meeting today, I’ll help if you need me, but see what you can do". They can also take initiative and responsibility for restoring strained relationships. ?

Managers are responsible for the wellbeing of their teams, but they must not be set up to fail in the absence of the necessary training to do so.

We've moved past enforced smiling, pizza parties, and endless information sessions on a variety of mental health issues, let's progress to investing in manager’s abilities to develop human connections that elevate the worth and integrity of their team members so that wellbeing is actually possible in practise.

I’d like to hear your thoughts on this piece, and on managerial training in general; are we getting their preparation right? Examples of great practices?

Want to learn more about how your managers can learn these micro-skills? DM me. ?

#WorkplaceWellbeing #HappinessMatters #TellMeIMatter #GoodBossesCare #ManagersMatter

References:

Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2000). The “what” and “why” of goal pursuits: Human needs and the self-determination of behavior.?Psychological Inquiry, 11, 227-268.

Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being.?American Psychologist, 55, 68-78.