Edit: Had to find a link to the article, it is not the exact same place but it looks like the same story.
Originally posted February 10, 2009 on AIXchange
Do good managers need to watch their backs? That’s the subject of this recent article. The author tells the story of two managers. One gave credit to those under him and above him. Understandably, he was well-liked. The second manager manager took credit for work that he and his team didn’t do. He’d also yell and threaten and harass, and scheme behind closed doors. At the end of the article (spoiler alert), the nice manager was let go.
I’ve had good managers and bad ones. I assume most of you can relate.
Certainly, I’ve been around long enough to understand that shouting and screaming doesn’t constitute leadership. I’m reminded of “Real Genius.” Toward the end of this 1980s era movie, a character named Lazlo is working at a computer, and things get a little tense. People are looking to him to get something done. As I recall, he says something about not working well under pressure. I don’t find anything wrong with this admission. Lazlo’s like a lot of smart folks I’ve known over the years. They like things orderly and calm, and in a crisis they’ll do what it takes to solve the problem.
Think back to tense moments in your career. Machines are down, response time is slow, people cannot login, applications won’t start. What ever the circumstance, was anything resolved more quickly, or made better, with a manager waving his arms and telling everyone that the sky is falling? Does yelling or screaming ever help pinpoint a problem’s root cause or develop better procedures to ensure that the same kind of outage doesn’t reoccur in the future?
I distinctly remember a group of us trying to troubleshoot a problem while a non-technical manager sat in the room. We were on hold with IBM support, discussing potential causes and possible solutions, and the manager would threaten and complain about the money being lost–as if we needed to be reminded that was a critical situation. On top of that, he slowed the process by asking basic technical questions, rather than let us technical people do our jobs and get things working again.
Good managers don’t yell, they motivate. Good managers try to keep the political and non-technical issues to a minimum, so you can concentrate on your job. Good managers care about you. I’ve had great managers who would lobby for us to get offsite education. I’ve had managers who would go to bat for us with management, and try to help us come up with acceptable work/life balance solutions. These are the managers who give credit where it’s due. I still keep in touch with these people, and I’d be happy to work with them again.
Over the years I have certainly had warnings about different shops to avoid. The management is inflexible. They shout and rave and act like children. Bad managers might be able to bully some employees, but word gets around. Before you know it, you have a reputation — and a workplace that people try to steer clear of.
I hope we aren’t to the point where the bad managers are winning at the expense of good managers. I hope that the teams we assemble know not just how to get the job done, but how to have fun. I hope that people work together for a common good, rather than simply putting in the time and collecting a paycheck. I also have hope for the bad managers, that they’ll learn that there’s a better way.
Finally, I hope that you–if you haven’t already–find a good job, working with and for good people.