Managing styles of different managers…

Every person has different behaviour and habits and if we considered managers as personJ, then they have strange behaviour and habits.  There are few managers who start their work after office hours. When you want to leave the office at sharp 5.30 pm, they will call you and will spoil your evening.  Some walk faster than employees, some have habit of staring out of the window while talking to employee, some managers let you give answers, some hide information and there are lot more other variations. Here are these different types of managers explained that why they do stuff they are used to do in front of employees.

Walking faster than employees: You will find these mangers in passages and corridors always walking fast than you. They are very busy and always ask you to run.   “We’ll have to talk” you can hear them say, just as they have disappeared around the corner.

Staring out of the window: These managers you usually meet with their backside faced to you with their hands in their pockets. When you talk to them, their thoughts keep staring out of the windows.

Managing by post-it’s: Some managers forget everything. They want to impress you with their busyness by continuously writing on Post-it’s while you are talking.

Managing by delegation to the secretary: These managers just delegate everything to the secretary. If He/She is good, He/She knows what he must do.

Managing by knowing nothing: These managers don’t really know anything at all. They let YOU give answers. Meanwhile they fill the time with nice anecdotes of irrelevant cases.

Managing by conceptual thinking: These people try to explain the present from a theoretical view of the far future. The idea that this never will work, completely satisfies them: They will always have something to talk about.

Managing by hiding information: Information hiders are aware of the market value of strictly secretly kept information. You must be very thankful to get any information at all. Beware of stimulants from category 5!

Managing by doing exactly what the boss says: These managers prevent their bosses from creative thinking. Else they got more work to do.

Managing by walking one foot behind the boss: In hierarchical organizations you can watch those groups walking in the corridor. The more equal managers are directly followed by the lesser equal managers, and so on.

Managing by smiling and wearing nice suits: If you drink beer with them, lunch with them, smile to them and also wear nice suits, nothing can stop your career anymore.

Managing by studying: Despite their continual attendances of all kind of studies and congresses, they still belong to category ‘MANAGING BY KNOWING NOTHING’. The longer they learn, the further they get from the practice.

Managing by creating vague overhead sheets: Do you know them? Those sheets with some big arrows, boxes or circles? These sheets provide the ultimate proof of their overall brilliance.

Managing by open door and empty room: This is a major improvement of the older ‘OPEN DOOR’ management style. Now you can really walk in and out anytime you want. Nobody ever knows where these managers are.

Managing by speaking with other managers: This kind of managing is very popular. It will give them within a few hours the same information as an employee can tell them in 15 minutes.

Managing by having a non supporting infrastructure: In an organization with a hopeless infrastructure, managers are really necessary. These managers will naturally prevent the organization from having a better infrastructure.

BUA management (by using abbreviations): This management style is ATRASACWOC. (Adopted To Reach A Shorter And Clearer Way Of Communication )

Managing by using buzz words: These managers like to bluff your head off with hip, nearly undefined, terms.

Managing by reorganization: If they think there is nothing more to organize, they reorganize.

Managing by believing: These managers must be spiritually educated, because they have no clues at all.

Managing by forgetting promises: If you remind them to one of their promises, the priority of that promise is to low to remember.

(Adopted from different sources)

Some leadership rudiments...

Leadership and leadership development is the hot and extensively discussed topic. There are different theories on leadership. People learn these theories during Leadership Workshops and training programmes and try to implement in their day to day life. I have also written a lot on leadership on this blog. Sometimes leaders are recognized when they are successful. The common phenomenon of recognition is “success is after all success.”

Most of the HR professionals, CEOs, trainers and so called coaches claim their initiatives on leadership development. Every organizations focuses on leadership however fundamental question on leadership still remains valid, “Are leaders born or made?”

 

“Leadership inputs” to be effective professional will always help, however it is continuous process and no single theory is effective. Leaders are expected to act as per the situation. However most of the time it is as per the perception of team members. If you speak with the team they have the perception that they are doing their job and due to their job the organization is running.  There is even a growing voice to the idea of organizations without leader with cross-functional steering committee. However the fact is people want to be lead. Here we need to view the leadership differently and should ask some fundamental questions. It is like back to basics.

How to view the leadership differently?

The leader needs to ask the question himself about his different orientation about the leadership skills.

Am I natural? The beahviour of the leader should be natural and honest. If you come from the leadership workshop or coaching session and learned few good tools, philosophies of leadership. If you want to practice those tools, the behaviour here should be natural.  People should perceive your behaviour as a natural outcome.  I have seen the managers who always perceived as phony because their output was not honest and natural. Your body language, gesture, eyes should complement with what you are talking.

Do I see the future? Leaders are expected to be visionaries and they should be. If you focus only tomorrow and not day after tomorrow, you are focusing only on tasks. A vision comes when you have the strategic thinking. The business leaders come from some functional areas and most of the times from sales function. Their focus remains on ASR, sales target, sales revenue and tactical issues. This is valid for other functional leaders as well.

Am I trapped in organization chart? Once the person is hired to lead the specific role, function or the business, he starts preparing and putting organization structure in place. This structure is moreover like “command and control” type of structure. First he hires personal secretary, then executive assistant and then other managers to support him. Sometimes he focuses on replacing existing one with new and conformable one. Here he restricts his direct influence on the people. Once the structure is build; he does not go beyond the organization structure. The question is how to build the passionate, skilled and committed team and not mere the organization structure.    

Once you are clear what you want from you, then it is very easy to brand you as a leader…

Boss, tell me what do you expect from me and be clear always.

Dilip Mate is an old employee working in IT department for last 15 years in the company. He started his career as a trainee in IT department and grown as IT head of one location. His responsibilities include IT support to all vertical of the company. The company is largest regional media company with newspapers, television, web, magazines etc. Dilip has seen almost 12-14 different bosses in his 15 years of career and surprisingly he managed to work with all bosses. Definitely few bosses were nuts and were there due to their loyalty with the owners. Their only qualification was they were in good books of the directors.

Dilip is straight forwards and is not at all political and diplomatic.

“So Dilip, how you manage these different bosses?” once I asked him.

“Oh, it is clear, working 15 years in one department and in same organization, I gained enough knowledge about the organization and working style of the people.”

“So what exactly you do.”

“When any new boss comes here, I am the first person going in his cabin and asking clear expectation from him.”

“What exactly you do?”

“I go and tell, Sir I am working here for 15 years and worked with different superiors with different personalities. I don’t know your management style. But let me know clearly how I should report you? Do you expect me to come your cabin every morning and evening to report about the work? You style may be either democratic, autocratic or mix of both, but it is always better to clarify everything now”

“What is the reaction of boss?”

“He surprises; perhaps I am the only person to ask such stupid questions. But after sometimes he comes out from the shock.” He told, “Bosses have unique expectations from their subordinates and if boss does not understand, then we should go to them ask them what are their priorities?”

“This is too much; bosses are bosses and they have the authority.”

“Yes, but they should clarify the expectations from their reportees.”

“Agreed, but always it is not possible.” As the boss of somebody I told him.

“Most of the time, they can be unreasonable, can expect everything, can give very little space for decisions. Hence as a subordinate, I go to them and clarify everything. It helps me perform better. Professionals like you may not like my style. But I enjoy this.” He smiled.

I could not comment on his response. What do you think?