Posted on 09/08/2023 2:10:33 PM PDT by anthropocene_x
I've seen a couple of good leaders, and a lot of bad managers throughout my 20-year career in tech and as a head of analytics at companies including eBay, Amazon, and GameStop.
I spent time reflecting on why so many managers fall into the category of a bad manager, instead of into the category of a great leader.
1. Most managers didn't set out to be a leader or manager Almost all started out as individual contributors, and many then found themselves working in management because it provided a higher salary.
2. Too many focus on actually managing instead of leading When discussing the details of their job, almost all managers will talk about the specifics of what projects and tasks they and their team work on. Very few managers will describe the specifics of their job as "leading others, who accomplish tasks."
3. Pressure to deliver can push manager into sacrificing employee growth Unfortunately, as a manager, there's a constant pressure to deliver results and please your manager. This means that when important projects, urgent tasks from executives, and risky situations arise, the focus tends to shift to management mode instead of leadership mode.
To develop great leaders, we must ensure that team members understand what true leadership is about. Then we need to create an environment the fosters the development of others and the creation of opportunities.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Once middle managers hit their Peter Principle level, they’re terrified of anyone below them taking their job. Had a boss like that once who was so bad about it that I quit the job. Then HIS boss grabbed me to take over another project.
Bad managers...
1. Someone promoted into management solely because he was related to someone important.
2. Someone who has a drug or alcohol problem or is a sex pervert using his position for sex. (They only hire people with drug or alcohol problems or people they want to have sex with.)
3. Anyone who has an unrealistic set of goals and objectives.
4. Someone hired to fill a sex or color goal instead of for ability.
5. Someone who can be a great manager but who has a bad manager above him.
“Unfortunately, as a manager, there’s a constant pressure to deliver results and please your manager. This means that when important projects, urgent tasks from executives, and risky situations arise, the focus tends to shift to management mode instead of leadership mode.”
In my ~30 years in management (”leadership”?), that was the case approximately 99% of the time.
When I became a supervisor in 1983, my company sent me to a week long training. This was followed up with two day meetings every three months for two years.
When I became a manager the same type of training took place.
When I became a general manager the course included media relations and community relations.
It was a grad school level education.
In my last job, I saw supervisors get tossed the keys. There was zero training.
They were some crappy supervisors because the company didn’t care about them. Turnover was crazy high.
Companies are run by accountants now. Accountants are not usually “people persons.”
Best managers are both managing and leading. Best managers have to not merely “lead”, because deadlines and goals are important, important for the team, not “management” alone, but help the team when the chips are down as well.
Personally,
My experience is that while large organizations preach all the “right” things about what they want in management, those that actually adhere to it and take good care of the people getting the job done, and help them make sure they get the job done, are almost always the ones run over by folks who just destroy their team to make a deadline, and leave a mess in their wake for the poor fool who has to come along and clean up the mess they created.
Leadership is easy.
Simply adopt the objectives necessary for your team to succeed, and complete YOUR part of the tasks...time, money, vision etc. Be relentless.
And hold every person accountable for THEIR tasks.
Never lie to staff. Make sure they know you have their interests at heart.
Done deal.
Sadly though the managers that get rewarded are not the ones who make sure they get the job done right and take care of and lead their teams...
Large orgs, the ones that get rewarded are just the ones who hit deadlines no matter how crappy the end result was, or how they destroyed their team in order to meat the deadline.
True leaders are rarely respected, at least by their higher ups... their reports love them and are loyal as can be to them... but the folks above, usually have zero respect for what they are doing.
The 1954 movie Executive Suite was the last gasp of a corporation being truly concerned with its mission rather than its accounts. Every corporate entity has a mission statement, but managers know it's propaganda BS, and those that don't get kicked out, sabotaged out, or made unhappy enough to quit.
Leaders are a threat to the company. The most desired attributes in a manager are lack of conscience while being blind and mute to lines the company is crossing.
Pay and compensation is another issue too. In many companies the managers, like professional sports and sales commission jobs, are paid much less than some of the employees they supervise. I've seen similar situations in union-staffed organizations. The newly hired or promoted manager makes a fraction of what the dead wood that's been around for decades earns.
Me = clinical pharmacist now retired from the VA. I was pretty damn good at my job. In error I accepted a management position as assistant chief of pharmacy. I was on the path to chief in a few short years. I resigned my position in one year and went back to staff. I knew what was right and wrong. I did not want to be part of this crap.
I then went to graveyard shift which no one wanted. I loved it. I was totally responsible for all that went right or wrong. Total responsibility is good. I also as all, made errors. They were my errors of which I acknowledged. I liked working like that. I did this until I retired, they tolerated me but respected me. That was okay.
They also knew to never ask me to do anything unethical. It had been done in the past, and I refused such. I would bust their ass for this. They just left me alone on the graveyard shift. It was good work.
Simple reality about management.
When the person becomes a manager who has decades of line experience, and actually knows the ins and outs of what the folks they have asked to lead need to do, knows how to relate and communicate with them and understands the day to day issues they face... knows how to inspire and get things done, without burning them out, and provides realistic timeframes, budgets, and can defend to the most microscopic detail everything he tells upper management when he presents his case... He’ll be run over by the person who just kills their team to hit an unrealistic deadline, even though the end product is crap..>
I watched a manager get promoted once who chose to take a product to production with absolutely no load testing... This was a ENTERPRISE LEVEL PRODUCT, to replace the entire authentication service across the enterprise.... running over his engineers... Needless to say, it crashed and burned horrifically once made live and took the org days to get everything right again and roll back to the old system.
End result... that manager got promoted within a month of the fiasco.... and Engineers who screamed bloody murder not to do it, got black marks.
Companies don’t want leaders, they say they want leaders, but by and large they don’t actually want leaders.
Bfl
The whole point of the modern MBA is how to loot a company by keeping prices high even as quality goes down or is replaced by outsourcing completely.
Boost the latest quarterly profits, cash in and when the company goes bankrupt, use your circle of fellow looters to land somewhere else to feast upon another company or tell the bankruptcy judge you deserve a bonus because your experience with the company is needed and then convince more investors to follow you down the black hole so you can loot them, too.
Most American big businesses are cons now.
Don’t listen to anyone who puts “MBA” after their name.
That about says it all in my experience.
When I saw the movie THE CAINE MUTINY I realized how much Captain Queeg’s actions reminded me o the worst plant manager I have ever had.
He finally retired, and when he died we hoped the family would bury him in our area as we did not have money to charter a bus to take us to Louisiana to p*ss on his grave.
Alas they buried him in Louisiana. He was so vile the ground would not hold him so they buried him in a crypt above ground.
I also think of Captain Sobel, from Band of Brothers.
Another is a sellout, yes man, spy, or management lackey.
I had a wannabe supervisor who was at best sort of an assistant one. He was a combination of all the above.
A well known very selective bouts of red in face anger and rage on demand was another selling point to management Loved and protected anyway. He hated me because I knew way more than he did and I was my own person that didn’t take much from him. Needless to say his bosses didn’t care for me unless they wanted something.
All that for about 31k a year state job.
He tried to scare me when I mentioned veteran status and lawsuit which I had a real case. The pointy haired tech manager above almost had a panic attack after I called after a lot of something blatantly wrong and obvious. It almost happened but he saw sense and problem fixed for me and several others.
That one blowup I honestly thought he was going to take a swing at me. I have a decent pain tolerance and would have let him inflict a little damage for show.
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