Manager Mindset

Zoya, a final year Delhi University student set off on an assignment for her university magazine. She is the editor of the magazine and given the upcoming placement season, she thought of an article interviewing her senior batch (who passed out last year), about their corporate lives. “It would give a great insight into life after college and also a fair understanding of the companies we would like to work for. Right from the horse’s mouth” she thought. She interviewed many people and finally got to Rahul and Vijay, who were toppers of the batch.

Rahul was excited about the organization he is working for. “This is great place to work for, Zoya” Rahul said. “It’s great culture. You are respected for your ideas and views. There is tremendous learning for me every day. We have a great team and highly competent colleagues. Our company has a great strategy and I am sure we would be a market leader in our industry”.

Zoya was thrilled to hear that Rahul was doing great. She proceeded for her appointment with Vijay.

“This is the worst place to work for”, Vijay said. “I was so excited to join the firm but after I came here, I got to know what a crappy place this is. There are politics all around. No one cares about your views and everyone is so focused on protecting their backs. There is zero learning and you are given menial tasks to do. People are so insecure in this place that any bright idea from your side is discarded right away. Given the current state, this organization is going nowhere. It’s a humongous waste of talent”.

Zoya started compiling her article and she is confused. Incidentally, both Rahul and Vijay work for the same company. “How could two people, working for the same company have such different experiences?” she wondered. “How do I put this company – as a great place to work for, or as not?” Suddenly, the whole premise of her article – identifying great places to work for, based on her senior batch experiences – is questioned.

Did you ever experience this situation – where people working in the same company, have widely different experiences? What differentiates these experiences? It cannot be policies, procedures, as they tend to be common across division, if not the organization.

Managers play an important role in the experience of the associates. There has been many a research that proves that people leave managers, not the organization. Given the emergence of multi-generational workforce in the corporates, the role of manager is becoming more critical. Those organizations that are serious about being best places to work focus significantly on Leadership development. However, across the board, there is limited trainings/guidance to the managers in being able to create right workplace environment. It’s less about the skillset and more about the mindset. We need to start changing the mindset of the managers.

Purely from a mindset perspective, at a broad level, we see two types of manager – Power managers and Value managers (I am taking the liberty to simplify a little bit here to articulate my point. We do talk about different management styles but I do believe that they emanate from the underlying thought process {mindset} and wherever the style may fall on the continuum, it is important to examine the origin). Before I proceed, let me state that I am not questioning the intent of these two types of managers – both are focused on doing good for the organization and achieving the best results. It is a question of their approach (if there are managers whose intent is to be questioned, then straight away, they should be asked to leave the organization – they are extremely bad for the culture and future of the company, independent of their criticality).

Power managers are those set of people who believe that they have achieved success out of their own individual efforts. They see the management position as a position of power through which they can get things done. They feel they should achieve the best results for the organization and that means they need to have control on everything that is happening in their groups. They operate by command and control structure. Given their background, they believe they know the best course of action and are not comfortable with alternate approaches. They tend to micromanage, as they need to be on top of everything. They see their team as set of resources available to follow their commands and seldom like to hear ideas unless they align with their own thought process. They are people with top-down approach.

Value managers are those set of people who believe that they have achieved success out of team effort. They see associates are the best value generators in the organization and the role of front line manager to senior person is to ensure that nothing comes in the way of associates generating maximum value to the organization. They tend to see the best way to achieve results for the organization is through team effort. They believe associates who are close to the work would know the work better and have multiple ideas. Hence, they tend to listen better to the associates and seek ideas. Since they believe in team effort, they build on the ideas of associates to get the best idea. They are open to new approaches and typically tend to pass down authority. They delegate better and do not micromanage, holding people accountable for results. They are people with bottoms-up approach.

Given the multi-generational workforce and emergence of Gen Y (who don’t like to be told how), I see Value managers being more successful in the future. In this fast changing world, it is very difficult for one person to know everything and to be on top of everything, thus tremendously slowing down and limiting the scope of achievement for Power managers.

Here is a simple exercise that I’d like you to undertake. Reflect back on your experience and identify a manager under whom you really worked very well and excelled. Similarly, look back and identify a manager under whom you struggled and looked to get out as soon as you can. Write down their traits (what they did, what they said, how they behaved). Now classify them as Power manager and/or Value manager. Presuming that both of them are competent set of people, under whom did you excel and under whom, you struggled? Do write your answer in the comments below.

Changing the mindset, from a Power manager to a Value manager, is possible but not easy. It means letting go of control and many people feel very uncomfortable with the idea. But it’s a risk worth taking and slowly (but surely), you could find a way towards being a value manager.

An organization that has a majority of managers to be Value managers, typically achieve best results and create an environment where associates look forward to work. What kind of a manager are you and what type of manager would you prefer? Do you think that a manager can transition from being a Power manager to be a Value manager?