Everybody complains about bad bosses, there are thousands of books about the tyranny of the micro-manager, the shouting boss and on and on it goes.
Spare a thought for the boss, who has to put up with problem employees, who take up 80% of their time, away from the high performers. Thus making the higher performers unhappy and more likely to leave or lower their output.
Employees are increasingly more difficult to fire; and sometimes this really is the most humane thing for everyone, especially the one being fired – even more so for minority groups.
Managers have their bosses on their back asking for more and more productivity, while the first level manager has little to no control over anything the people working for him do.
The manager must work extra hours to do the actual management work, because during business hours she was answering questions and putting out fires generated by the team.
More than likely, the manager has had precious little training, and almost no ongoing going coaching. Often the manger was a great specialist earning a reputation and thrust into leadership as result.
While for all of this, the manager probably gets paid an extra 10% per year.
For managers to be effective they need:
- Workflow systems (methodologies such as Lean, Theory of Consytraints, Six Sigma)
- Problem solving
- Decisions making
- Innovation skills
- Personal organisation systems
- Project Management
- Strategy
- Setting appropriate measurements and KPI’s
These are the hard management skills that will help them make resourcing decisions. And actually help improve productivity.
They need the pragmatic people training, such as:
- Conflict resolution
- Leadership: influence and behaviour change
- How to empower people
- Negotiation
- Communication skills
Then the manager can think about becoming a role model.
Think about the huge array of skills listed above a manager must have. Name me a specialist, superstar salesperson who is going to be born a leader with these skills. These skills are all learnable.
If you’re about to promote a manager, think about what you’re getting them into.
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