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> Leadership is hard. None of us comes to work to do a bad job, and there are always ways we can be better. So, when you have a leader who isn't meeting your ex

by qntty 9y ago

> Leadership is hard. None of us comes to work to do a bad job, and there are always ways we can be better. So, when you have a leader who isn't meeting your expectations, maybe try reframing the situation and looking at things a little differently from the top down. IMO the burden is on the people who's job it is to manage people to ask the people they manage what their perspective is on an issue. Managers who do a bad job because they don't care what their employees think have no business managing people.

groby_b 9y ago
It's an issue of scaling. Can I ask 5 people what their perspective is? Sure. 15? It's getting tough, but maybe. 50? Not really. And so you delegate. Which means you get filtered information. Detecting which filters work well and which don't is tricky. It's not that managers "don't care", it's that they genuinely don't know and haven't figured out they don't know yet. You can short-circuit that by telling them. Sure, getting the info is their job, but pushing it their way might get them the info faster. Just saying "but it's their job" is not helpful.
- qntty 9y ago
  I think it's perfectly acceptable for managers who are managing many people to utilize the tools that are typically used for aggregating people's opinions in other contexts. They can ask them to fill out a survey, ask them to vote on an issue, or have representatives responsible for representing the opinion of subgroups that they manage.
  - groby_b 9y ago
    > or have representatives responsible for representing the opinion of subgroups that they manage. Yes. And so the opinion becomes filtered. See above.
    - qntty 9y ago
      I guess I didn't mean to criticize managers who are continuously soliciting feedback through a middleman, just ones who aren't soliciting feedback at all.
    - vanadium 9y ago
      The right answer for any leader at Director or above is to simply schedule 1:1s with random people from all levels of those you manage directly or indirectly, at least once--if not more--per week. It's a rather efficient bullshit detector when you have two or more layers down in the organic chart.
- ZenoArrow 9y ago
  > "Can I ask 5 people what their perspective is? Sure. 15? It's getting tough, but maybe. 50? Not really." Don't make one person in charge of 50 people then (at least, not their direct line manager). Management where your only option is delegation is not very effective, in my experience. You have to be able to choose when to delegate and when to step in. The only way that works is when the teams are small enough that a single individual knows enough about what's going on to know when to change their leadership approach. Furthermore, of all the managers I've worked under, the most effective ones all have one thing in common... they're protective of their team. This protection only seems to work when a manager understands what their team is going through. Consider a scenario where a management meeting is taking place and a manager from another department is complaining about how long your team is taking to complete a task. If your manager doesn't understand what your team is going through, what's the best answer your manager can give? That they'll "look into it". That may sound reasonable, but it puts your team on the back foot from the start. Effective team protection brings a few key benefits... it builds loyalty, it reduces stress on team members, it focuses energy on key tasks rather than trying to do everything all at once. Managers who don't protect their teams may as well not turn up. If they're just another voice adding to the cacophony of demands, then they could be doing more harm than good.
  - groby_b 9y ago
    > Don't make one person in charge of 50 people then (at least, not their direct line manager). Which is, literally, delegation. Yes, front-line managers should have some understanding of what their people go through, and have direct lines with all of them. But the article didn't refer to frontline managers only. In fact, the opening example was about a VP. (I'd argue that it's mostly not about frontline managers - the title is badly chosen) But even when you're a frontline manager, "step in" is not really a good option. Unless your team is tiny, inserting yourself into actual execution means you just created a huge schedule hazard for your team. For better or worse, as a manager, you work through others. Your direct impact is very limited - your main job is allowing others to have maximum impact. (Protecting your team falls under that rubric - shield people from administrative noise, so they can do their actual job)
    - 9y ago
- wiz21c 9y ago
  This, plus : >>> When things aren't going right, these senior leaders have a limited number of options to make a change. Means to me that, well, randomness is a big part of the job. So WTF are they paid so much ?
  - humanrebar 9y ago
    Senior leaders have plenty of options to make changes. McDonald's leadership (including Ray Kroc and the McDonald brothers) did lots that wasn't in those categories.

by qntty 9y ago

groby_b 9y ago

It's an issue of scaling. Can I ask 5 people what their perspective is? Sure. 15? It's getting tough, but maybe. 50? Not really. And so you delegate. Which means you get filtered information. Detecting which filters work well and which don't is tricky. It's not that managers "don't care", it's that they genuinely don't know and haven't figured out they don't know yet. You can short-circuit that by telling them. Sure, getting the info is their job, but pushing it their way might get them the info faster. Just saying "but it's their job" is not helpful.

qntty 9y ago
I think it's perfectly acceptable for managers who are managing many people to utilize the tools that are typically used for aggregating people's opinions in other contexts. They can ask them to fill out a survey, ask them to vote on an issue, or have representatives responsible for representing the opinion of subgroups that they manage.
- groby_b 9y ago
  > or have representatives responsible for representing the opinion of subgroups that they manage. Yes. And so the opinion becomes filtered. See above.
  - qntty 9y ago
    I guess I didn't mean to criticize managers who are continuously soliciting feedback through a middleman, just ones who aren't soliciting feedback at all.
  - vanadium 9y ago
    The right answer for any leader at Director or above is to simply schedule 1:1s with random people from all levels of those you manage directly or indirectly, at least once--if not more--per week. It's a rather efficient bullshit detector when you have two or more layers down in the organic chart.
ZenoArrow 9y ago
> "Can I ask 5 people what their perspective is? Sure. 15? It's getting tough, but maybe. 50? Not really." Don't make one person in charge of 50 people then (at least, not their direct line manager). Management where your only option is delegation is not very effective, in my experience. You have to be able to choose when to delegate and when to step in. The only way that works is when the teams are small enough that a single individual knows enough about what's going on to know when to change their leadership approach. Furthermore, of all the managers I've worked under, the most effective ones all have one thing in common... they're protective of their team. This protection only seems to work when a manager understands what their team is going through. Consider a scenario where a management meeting is taking place and a manager from another department is complaining about how long your team is taking to complete a task. If your manager doesn't understand what your team is going through, what's the best answer your manager can give? That they'll "look into it". That may sound reasonable, but it puts your team on the back foot from the start. Effective team protection brings a few key benefits... it builds loyalty, it reduces stress on team members, it focuses energy on key tasks rather than trying to do everything all at once. Managers who don't protect their teams may as well not turn up. If they're just another voice adding to the cacophony of demands, then they could be doing more harm than good.
- groby_b 9y ago
  > Don't make one person in charge of 50 people then (at least, not their direct line manager). Which is, literally, delegation. Yes, front-line managers should have some understanding of what their people go through, and have direct lines with all of them. But the article didn't refer to frontline managers only. In fact, the opening example was about a VP. (I'd argue that it's mostly not about frontline managers - the title is badly chosen) But even when you're a frontline manager, "step in" is not really a good option. Unless your team is tiny, inserting yourself into actual execution means you just created a huge schedule hazard for your team. For better or worse, as a manager, you work through others. Your direct impact is very limited - your main job is allowing others to have maximum impact. (Protecting your team falls under that rubric - shield people from administrative noise, so they can do their actual job)
  - 9y ago
wiz21c 9y ago
This, plus : >>> When things aren't going right, these senior leaders have a limited number of options to make a change. Means to me that, well, randomness is a big part of the job. So WTF are they paid so much ?
- humanrebar 9y ago
  Senior leaders have plenty of options to make changes. McDonald's leadership (including Ray Kroc and the McDonald brothers) did lots that wasn't in those categories.