Why is it hard to be a Connector Manager?
As the war for talent intensifies, organizations are going above and beyond to retain and attract talent. One of the key aspects of retaining talent is to have managers who can develop employees to take on newer challenges and keep abreast with the changes in technology and skills.
The question here arises, what kind of a manager is best suited to develop the employees in these constantly changing as well as jam-packed work environments. According to a study conducted by Gartner, there are four major types of coaching styles that a manager adopts, these are Teacher, Always on, Cheerleader, and Connector.
Teacher Managers rely on their own experience and expertise to develop hyper-specific skills in the employees. The Always-On Managers, provide a contact barrage of feedback and develop all necessary skills by themselves. The Cheerleader Managers leave the development of the employees to them while cheering with positive feedback. Lastly, there are Connector Managers, who will give targeted advice and connect employees to other peers and leaders who can develop skills that they might not be experts on.
With all the different styles, the Connector managers are the ones who perform the most strongly in terms of employee development. The significant issue that arises is managers are groomed to direct and develop their employees by themselves. Moreover to acknowledge that the managers may not have all the skills that their employees need to excel in their given role requires a level of introspection and openness that may not sit comfortably with them.
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The apprehensions of those thinking that the Connector style is difficult to adopt can find solace in the real-world example of IBM. At IBM, they have adopted this Connecter style by creating an open marketplace for all employees to learn from their peers. It doesn’t mean that the manager’s role in the development of the employee has been abdicated but rather the focus has shifted to Quality over Quantity of feedback, the right questions being asked, and broadening the scope of learning for the whole team.
P.S. A work submission for job change I did ages ago, thought why let good post go waste.