Author’s note: The next few entries will be part of a series on hypocritical behavior exhibited by managers and how it can affect their employees. While there have been previous entries written on this subject, several incidents have come to me recently to justify this ‘series’. I hope you enjoy and invite you to contribute your own stories in comments.
An employee recently wrote to the Employee Relations Manager about a serious concern she had. She received an out of office message indicating that the ER Manager was, naturally, out of the office that week. Sounds rather typical, doesn’t it? There’s only one problem. The ER Manager wasn’t out of the office.
Technically, she was. She was visiting another office location for a few days. However, she had her laptop and the hotel had a wireless connection. The company has VPN, so she can log into her mail. Even if that didn’t work, the company has a way to get your mail from any computer, and she has a Blackberry. Her manager, who she was traveling with, had a standing policy that work needed to be done even if out visiting other offices.
I thought maybe I had misinterpreted the out of office message, so asked the employee if she ever heard back from the ER Manager during the time she was out of the office, or one of the ER Manager’s subordinates. The employee reported that neither happened.
Why was I so loath to give this manager the benefit of the doubt? Her track record. For instance:
- One of her former direct reports let me know of a time when she gave her a contract to work on, rather than work on it herself. The direct report had to pretty much negotiate this contract, though it was well above her level or her expertise. The ER Manager would also express frustration with the direct report whenever she asked questions on it.
- Another direct report indicated that, when she expressed to the manager that she didn’t have the bandwidth to handle an assignment, the only response the manager gave was, “I’m sorry you don’t wish to be a team player”.
- The ER Manager became the ER Manager in a reorganization where she lost her direct reports. The instructions to her were that she was to finish the work from her former job and then transition to the ER Manager role. This manager’s idea of transition? Pick up the pile of work, bring it to one of her now former direct reports, dump it on her desk, and say, “This is now yours to handle”. In none of these instances, was she counseled by her superiors about how to properly delegate.
I bring this up under the umbrella of hypocrisy because this manager’s job is to coach managers on proper delegation of work and determine proper workloads. Her department has offered her services internally to the department on how to handle workloads, but nobody has taken her up on the offer. No one wonders why.
While a manager’s duties include the proper delegation of work, a good manager sees times when there is just too much to do and takes on part of the burden themselves. They also take some of the dirty work, whether that be an unpleasant task or something that they are unfamiliar with, to illustrate to their subordinates that they understand their pressures and timelines. They will also give the challenging tasks to their subordinates as a growth opportunity. However, there is a significant difference between delegating and dumping. A good manager delegates for the benefit of their employees, knowing when they have to take on some of the tasks themselves. They do not delegate simply because they don’t wish to add to their own burden or are simply lazy and can hand something off. That type of management shows the manager is thinking of themselves only, and could care less about their employees. This is the type of manager who should be a manager in name only, without direct reports.
As has been said before, a good manager doesn’t have to be a complete altruist. They don’t have to be a martyr, taking everything on themselves. They should not do the opposite, either. A good manager understands workloads and works cooperatively with their people to make sure no one is set up to fail. This more than anything builds respect and mutual trust.
For a manager who is supposed to be the model of Employee Relations to act in a selfish way while counseling others on the proper way to deal with staff to not walk the talk shows what a company’s values and culture is all about. It is a company that should not expect great respect either of Employee Relations or of the company in general.
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