First line managers who don’t look after their people or who don’t know how to look after their people undermine an organisation. First line managers who look after their people enhance an organisation. It’s often the difference between happy employees and unhappy employees. Low turnover and high turnover. Good customer service and poor customer service. A well executed strategy and a poorly executed strategy.
This is not breaking news to anyone who has worked in enough organisations to spot the ubiquitous nature of the problem. So if it’s so common why has it not been sorted?
In my experience there are 3 reasons why organisations find that only some managers of frontline staff our good at looking after their people. One, the recruitment process.Two, the time, energy and expertise organisations invest in developing this group. Three, the way we approach appraisal and the ability to redirect.
Most organisations still recruitment to management posts on the bases of how competent the individual was in their previous non management post. Experience repeatedly shows an outstanding professional does not necessarily make an outstanding manager. The skill sets required are totally different. The interview process all to often focuses on budget management and performance and fails to give appropriate weight to people management skills. The modern manager doesn’t just have to get people to do what needs doing they have to demonstrate emotional intelligence and compassion. That is insight into how their behaviour effects others and to treat the health and well-being of their people seriously.
In this country the approach to management development has tended to be , “ sink or swim”. Most managers would still tell you they learnt about management from their experience of being managed, which is rather like your mum and dad teaching you to drive, you learn the bad habits as well as the good. In most organisations a disproportionate amount of the training and development budget is spent on those senior managers identified for the top. Management training for the rest tends to be very practical, budget management, equal opportunity recruitment, Health and Safety. A high quality mentoring scheme for first time managers should be the norm and much more use should be made of management learning sets if organisations are going to systematically raise the standard of management.
Some times individuals think they want to be a manager but when they find themselves in post they don’t like doing the management stuff and instead neglect it in favour getting over involved in the work of team members because this is their comfort zone. Others were simply poor appointments. Either way too often the individual is left in post to do years of damage. Organisations need to be able to redirect people who are in the wrong post, not by dismissing them or demoting them but utilising their professional experience, knowledge and skills. Rewarded at the similar level to the management post. The organisation can’t afford to throwaway the professional expertise so perhaps they can be given an enhanced professional role, a role promoting best practice, inspection. If the only career route to a higher salary is to go into management then people who don’t want to be managers and are not suited to management will apply for and continue to be appointed to management posts.
The chef executive may set the tone in an organisation but those who manage front line employees have a tremendous influence on the culture of the organisation. So it’s worth getting the right people in post, developing them and redirecting those don’t have what it takes to be a modern manager.
Blair McPherson former director author and blogger www.blairmcpherson.co.uk
