Last week\u2019s post \u201cDifficult Boss\u201d discussed the importance of getting along with the boss.\u00a0 Many of us fail to consider that managers also answer to bosses.\u00a0 There is often a misconception that management is a club where once you are a member everything becomes easy.\u00a0 Managers get paid more for doing less. \u00a0All a manager does is tell others what to do, then sit back and watch them work.\u00a0 Managers have a different view.\u00a0 Most feel they are stuck in the middle.<\/p>\n
The career ladder infers only the person at the top has no one above him.\u00a0 Everyone else answers to someone.\u00a0 Even the CEO has to answer to the board of directors, and increasingly to the stockholders.\u00a0 Although the pay and the perks increase with position, so does responsibility.\u00a0 In my opinion, responsibility is the major management challenge.\u00a0 On any level, fulfilling responsibilities takes management skills.\u00a0 It is common to focus on the immediate task, without concern for the peripheral elements.\u00a0 It takes management balance efforts and resources to achieve a goal. Even in a distributed team there is a tacit management function as team members volunteer or are assigned responsibilities. Viewed from a distance management and responsibility are subservient elements.\u00a0 Upper management depends on the first line manager to achieve the company goals, and the employees depend on the manager to ensure the resources to accomplish their tasks.\u00a0 The manager is stuck in the middle.<\/p>\n
One may argue that responsibility is not unique to managers.\u00a0 Employees are responsible for coming to work and doing their jobs.\u00a0 While that is true the difference is the employee is only responsible for their personal performance, while the manager is held accountable for fulfilling\u00a0 all the responsibilities within his scope.\u00a0 For example, although it is an employee\u2019s responsibility to come to work on time, it is a manger\u2019s responsibility to take corrective action if they are late. \u00a0Thus while it is the employees responsibility to be on time, it is the manager\u2019s responsibility to ensure the employee fulfills their responsibility.\u00a0 The manager is also accountable to their boss for the employee\u2019s punctuality.\u00a0 If the manager can\u2019t ensure the employee will be at work on time, they have failed to fulfill their responsibility, and it is their boss\u2019s responsibility to ensure the manager remedies the situation.<\/p>\n
Managers have varying degrees of authority.\u00a0 Most first line managers have very little authority and more often are an extension of upper management.\u00a0 Although they are held accountable for achieving assigned goals, they have little authority to accomplish their task.\u00a0 In most cases, the most authority a first line managers have are assignments and evaluations.\u00a0 The way a manager employs their authority is a combination of management styles and skills.\u00a0 On one side a manager\u2019s authority can be used to bully and punish employees, and on the other the same authority can serve as incentives and rewards. (Bonuses and disciplinary actions are usually administered by HR and upper management.) Management skills and styles determine how a manager employs their authority.<\/p>\n
Managers also experience a lot of stress. Many managers feel they are assigned tasks or projects without being provided the required resources to complete them.\u00a0 This stress often causes the manager to take it out on the employees.\u00a0 Instead of developing a cooperative working environment, the manager transfers the stress to the employee through bullying techniques. This is usually counter productive causing less work to be accomplished and the viscous cycle escalates.\u00a0 The more the manager presses the less the employees produce.\u00a0 The cycle continues until a working balance is reached where the manager lets up enough for the employees to accomplish the minimum amount of acceptable work. No one is happy.<\/p>\n
There are managers who have good management and people skills.\u00a0 These managers balance the need to get the work done with concern for the employee.\u00a0 This environment usually produces the most efficient scenarios where the employees are willing to go the extra mile to get the job done. In return the manager recognizes the employees efforts and both sides benefit. \u00a0This is the textbook management model where managers and employees support each other to accomplish the assigned company goals.\u00a0 There are several free tests on line that attempt to measure management potential and skills.\u00a0 There is an article on the Mind Tools site http:\/\/www.mindtools.com\/pages\/article\/newTMM_28.htm<\/a> that discusses management skills and has a short quiz.\u00a0 Check it out, see how you do.<\/p>\n In my opinion the first line manager position is the most difficult.\u00a0 As one progresses up the management hierarchy there appears to be more of a balance between responsibility and authority.\u00a0 The work is more focused on the company\u2019s strategic plan and there are less day-to-day administrative duties.\u00a0 Middle and upper level managers usually have a support staff who attend to the more mundane aspects of the managers duties.\u00a0 Although many employees work their way up though the ranks to middle management, this area is mostly populated by MBA and others with advanced management degrees.\u00a0 This is the training ground for upper level positions. \u00a0If you are going to be stuck in the middle this is the middle to be stuck in.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Last week\u2019s post \u201cDifficult Boss\u201d discussed the importance of getting along with the boss.\u00a0 Many of us fail to consider that managers also answer to bosses.\u00a0 There is often a misconception that management is a club where once you are a member everything becomes easy.\u00a0 Managers get paid more for doing less. \u00a0All a manager […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,6,7],"tags":[9,3],"class_list":["post-209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advice","category-career-challenges","category-personality","tag-career-strategies","tag-practicalmentor"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/practicalmentor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/practicalmentor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/practicalmentor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/practicalmentor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/practicalmentor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=209"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/practicalmentor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":242,"href":"https:\/\/practicalmentor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209\/revisions\/242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/practicalmentor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/practicalmentor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/practicalmentor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}