You may well have heard the old adage ‘people join organisations but they leave managers’. Well, at the risk of challenging an HR ‘fact’, I’m not sure it’s quite that simple. People leave for more pay, better opportunities, restructures, non-work reasons and sometimes they leave because of their managers- but I guess that’s not quite as catchy. What is beyond challenge is that your manager will have a significant impact on your enjoyment of work and probably your performance- after all, that’s their job right? We’ve all had bad managers, but I’m pretty sure most of us have also had really good managers. So I think we should give managers a bit of a break- or at least treat them a little bit differently.
In my experience, middle managers are often the lynch pins of organisations. They are the link between leaders and the majority of the organisation. They have to balance competing strategic demands whilst rolling up their sleeves and getting stuck in. They have to deliver difficult messages and handle the fall-out afterwards, they also play a key role in planning and organising, motivation, employee experience and ultimately, business results. Of course, some managers are better at this than others - some focus too much on the task and others get too caught up in trying to keep everyone happy. It’s my view that this normally stems from four places:
If I think about the really great managers I’ve had, they’ve struck a balance between giving me autonomy and holding me accountable, inspired the team behind shared goals, been able to take different approaches when the occasion required it and been self-aware enough to acknowledge their blind-spots and mistakes.
I see a lot of investment in structured development at the higher levels of organisations, such as leadership development programmes and executive coaching but not as much investment at the start of the management journey- where I think there’s a real opportunity to influence the direction that new managers and leaders could take. I can’t irrefutably prove it (although we can look at some measures and track impact), but it’s my hunch- based on experience- that a small investment of time, money and support at this stage of a manager’s career could be transformational for organisational performance. To quote another old adage 'prevention is better than cure'.
I’ve been working with clients recently to develop their approach at this end of the spectrum- focusing on self-awareness, emotional intelligence, understanding your value as a manager, coaching and accountability. We’re making it really practical as well, dealing with real world situations rather than getting bogged down in theory- and we think it could have some really powerful results.
If you’re interested in having a conversation on this topic and how it might apply to managers in your organisation, please get in touch via ben@sightscreenhr.co.uk