M Power

I read an article recently which talked about ‘bad’ managers. We all know the saying “people don’t leave jobs they leave bad managers”. We have witness testimony and even personal experience of people with poor management styles, and I am not the only one who has made a career out of management development. So, we all know and agree that some managers don’t get it right.

But it saddens me every time I see or hear when managers get all the blame.

I have started to ask delegates on my management development programmes (MDPs), “what did you want to be when you grew up?” It’s part of the introduction but has become part of their self-awareness too. After we have done the rounds, I feign astonishment at the fact that no one said Line Manager. What?! No one wanted to fill out forms, commit endless policies to memory, take on the personal and performance responsibilities of multiple and diverse human beings whilst trying to hold down their own work??

No. On the whole they wanted to do something more satisfying and fulfilling in terms of contribution and achievement. Things others may be more openly grateful for. Specialist roles in many cases. In western culture, those jobs that we got our surnames from millennia ago which described what we did: Smith, Nurse, Tailor, Painter, Baker, etc. Try googling “famous people with the surname Manager” and see how many hits you get. I got 0. I am sure there are people out there who have that surname, but I genuinely don’t know any, and I meet a lot of people in my line of work!

Back in ancient Mesopotamia, when humans started settling and complex societies began to thrive and grow, we found that one blacksmith could no longer serve the whole community. They clubbed together and trained others to satisfy demand. Their companies got so big they needed dedicated people to oversee the work. The term ‘line manager’ coming much later from Henry Ford’s “assembly line” method of production, of course.

If they were really successful, organisations would hire an accountant or a distribution specialist; even marketeer and salespeople where there was competition. Someone else oversaw the relationship between the roles. They managed: “made do with”, “coped with” or “controlled” the resources they had. And all the managers were still closely linked to the product or service provided.

They had confidence that they knew what they were doing, and others had confidence in them. They could control and exercise the power that they had. They were respected.

More and more often I come across managers who feel powerless, rather than powerful.

I have found, in environments where there is a large proportion of ‘accidental’ managers – they rose through attrition, change, subject matter expertise to a position which they had not planned to take on just yet; roles that others had left because it was ‘all too much!’ – we develop complicated policies and vague guidelines and restrictive competency frameworks; we sheep dip them on generic MDPs, and talk about a bit of coaching and/ or mentoring for the favoured ones who are really struggling. All in order to “help”.

Though I suspect that help is more often about the organisation trying to maintain a level of control and finding someone to hold accountable for a systemic cultural problem, those support mechanisms provide direction. Sure! They provide a modicum of clarity. Okay. They give us a way to measure the performance of the management position itself. And it’s effectiveness? I am not so sure.

Even poor management styles can provide good results for the company. Sometimes better ones.

But in this day and age, we need more from our managers. They need to look out for specialist roles beyond their full understanding, the wellbeing of their direct reports, they need to exercise fair and equitable discretion, they need to motivate and inspire. Our modern managers need to be Leaders.

A Head of Service that I admire greatly told me recently that the MDP I ran, in which he participated years ago, has provided him with the confidence to grow in his position. Not just in terms of how he manages his team and service, but also in how he manages upwards and amongst his peers. He manages relationships, he challenges perceptions, he listens in order to understand what he must (strategy), can (authority) and should (added value) do.

It is very easy to blame the managers who are left feeling powerless: by giving them Accountability only. It is natural that you would want to build more and more systems of control to ensure their Competence.

Yet, I would argue, it is equally easy to make our managers feel powerful instead: by giving them Authority to do something different according to the situation when they need to. That requires us to build their Confidence.

How? Respect the influential and difficult role the title Manager confers on them, at all levels. Listen to them. Develop them. Support them. Point out the direction you need them to go and let them “manage”; learning along the way. That is truly Empowering.

#management, #development, #empowerment, #confidence