Managing Your Manager
06-02-2013
Starting off with the ‘Absent managers’, these are the managers who will leave you to ‘get on with it’. Although this sounds fairly normal and straight forward it is not the best way to achieve great things as a manager. They can tend to be just as frustrating as you are left with no sense of direction let alone knowing what they expect from you. How do you solve this situation? Well you quite simply interact with your boss as if you have become your own manager. Knowing you are a hard working is more self motivation than any boss could ever give you and push your manager for more detailed directions.
Then you have the ‘Micro-manager’, this type of manager is slightly different than the ‘Absent manager’ leaving you with little pride you have in your work. They will scrutinize every inch of your work making you feel two foot tall. This can be caused by many reasons a lot of the time from stress and self insecurities. How do you deal with them? Try to see all given tasks from their point of view. Think back to if you have given them a reason to look over you. This will help you make judgement to if you need to pay more attention to detail or question more before setting into a task. Set yourself a time frame of checking back to them, if they see you are taking this seriously they will back off a little.
You also have the ‘Autocratic manager’. A manager who tends to be extremely blunt, they will tell you to do a task instead of discussing it first. These tend to be managers who are higher up the management chain, you wouldn’t usually get much say in there decisions and this will make it harder for you to make progress or for them to trust you enough to make your own decisions. How would you solve it? This is a tricky one, the first thing would be to develop a good trust worthy relationship. Meaning become the liaison between your team and your manager. They love information so make sure you are they one to keep them informed. If there is bad news, keep them updated and even come up with some suggestions of your own to shows you are willing.
Next you have the ‘Seagull’ you may not see much of this type of manager on a day to day basis but when they pop in you will certainly know about it! They will either show up when a problem occurs or they will be the reason the problem has been raised and cause more chaos and panic. A good tip to dealing with this manager is to always be prepared. Make sure that everyone is aware of what’s going on. You manager will be more impressed if everyone is calm and cool headed.
You’ll then have the ‘Delegators’, these manager tend not to be as difficult as other types of managers. They are more than happy for you to get on with work by yourself, but what’s more annoying is when they try and take credit for work that isn’t there’s. This can vary rarely happen but it does still happen! There is only one way to deal with this situation and that’s to keep your ideas quiet until a team meeting or keep a record of the e-mails via to what you have been working on. As your boss is the person responsible for your working ethic it is sometimes hard not to go behind there back, in this case you will have to just let it go.
Finally you have the ‘Headless chickens’, this is a very rare type of manager. They are they type who will make workers over-stressed and over-worked. Going from one extreme to another they will either ask you to do an important task with little brief then the next they are micro-managing a seemingly insignificant job. How would you deal with a ‘Headless chicken’? This type of management usually finds its own fix. They tend to act like this due to stress and the only thing you can do it to make life a little more easier for your manager meaning an easier life for yourself. Try to fix problems before they arise and ask of any extra responsibility to help them out.
How you manage yourself plays a big part in how you would manage your manager. Keep your own self-motivation, organisation and productivity up and then everything else is out of your control. Your manager as well as your team will soon realise this and appreciate it, you need to realise that your manager is only trying to do what is best for the company and employees. Remember to be careful when criticizing the way they are doing things because that could be you one day.
For more information on the Career Forum seminar last night then please see the article on our website.