Are You Failing To Maximize Your Impact As A Manager?

Are you, in your role as a manager, “guilty” of any of these....

*** Worrying about hurting people’s feelings?

*** Insisting that how you see the issue is the only way to see it?

*** Always concerning yourself with being “too involved,” “too arrogant,” “too.......anything”?

These are just a few of the ways that we’ve seen managers, often people who have the capacity to be quite good managers, get in the way of their potential impact on the people who are looking to them for help.

Sometimes the problem originates in the individual’s inexperience as a manager. They were outstanding in their role as a sales person, an engineer, a marketing whiz...and then they were promoted to being a manager. But, unfortunately they received little or no preparation for their new role. And so they have good reason to be concerned.

Sometimes the problem develops when the manager’s own manager gives advice that conflicts with the junior manager’s values, personality, or some other issue. Hence, the cause for concerns.

And sometimes it’s the manager’s psychological underpinnings that generate behavior that undermines their impact and their reputation.

Example A - Manager “A” was raised by a father who was emotionally brutal, screaming at every little thing, putting the children down any time he was upset. Consequently “A” learned to be “good” in order to avoid as much abuse as possible. Later as a manager, she had trouble expressing critical feedback for fear of hurting people’s feelings, of upsetting them, but had no association to her early years as the cause of her concern.

Example B - Manager “B” grew up in an alcoholic household in which both parents routinely not only became drunk but also fought with each other, throwing dishes, smashing their fists into walls, passing out in front of the television. “B” learned, at an early age, to be tough, to withstand the hurt and shock of this horrible parental behavior by never letting anyone or anything take him down. Then many years later as a manager, he found himself getting a reputation for being a bully, for arguing with his reports over almost anything, again with no sense of where his defensive behavior was rooted.

Example C - Manager “C” attended upper class private schools starting in nursery school and going all the way through university. His parents were the epitome of “refined” and “influential.” “C” was continually coached to make his parents “proud” by exhibiting “good behavior.” Consequently it’s no surprise that he struggles with “concerns” about his behavior as a manager even though his parents are now not even in the same country where he is employed.

There are a multitude of reasons that people who have everything it takes to be outstanding managers fail to maximize their ability. And, unfortunately, most people who train managers never touch on these deep-seated root hold backs because they don’t know about them.

So if you train, mentor, and/or coach managers please do yourself a favor - and those you work with - by reading our book What Really Killed Whitney Houston, which details the power of early unconscious programming to limit people’ s capacity to thrive.

Judith Sherven, PhD and her husband Jim Sniechowski, PhD https://JudithandJim.com have developed a penetrating perspective on people’s resistance to success, which they call The Fear of Being Fabuloustm. Recognizing the power of unconscious programming to always outweigh conscious desires, they assert that no one is ever failing—they are always succeeding. The question is, at what? To learn about how this played out in the life of Whitney Houston for example, and how it may be playing out in your own life, check out their 6th book: https://WhatReally KilledWhitneyHouston.com

Currently consultants on retainer to LinkedIn providing transformational executive coaching, leadership training and consulting as well as working with other corporate and private clients around the world, they continually prove that when unconscious beliefs are brought to the surface, the barriers to greater success and leadership presence begin to fade away. You can learn about their core program “Overcoming the Fear of Being Fabulous” by going to
https://OvercomingtheFearofBeingFabulous.com

Their 7th book, short and to the point, “25 Power Speaking Tips That Will Leave Your Audiences Wanting More,” is available in kindle at: https://tinyurl.com/25PWRSPKGTips