Management Paradox

Leading by example is more than a simple statement about how one should manage. It is a manager’s tool that should be utilized to build a dynamic organization that inherits the appropriate organizational culture.

Great or pathetic, the workforce behind a manager will follow his or her lead. They will adopt the same habits and reflect the manager’s disposition back to the organization.

Look around and see those departments or organizational units that work effectively together. Do they and their manager share the same expectations on schedules, workplace absences, organizational accountability, project management practices, and deadline urgencies? My guess is that they do. When managers hold their subordinates to a different standard than themselves it breeds resentment and frustration.

Leading by example does more than simply fosters team building, trust, dependability and communication. When everyone is treated to the same standard and expectations as the boss workplace efficiencies increase and communications are improved. Of course here we are assuming that the manager who is “leading by example” is a competent manager. A manager who is himself/herself reflective of the organizational culture and strategic initiatives.

Organizations deploy a variety of information technology and systems to increase productivity and efficiencies. We all, in our daily lives, touch various aspects of technology to do our work and run our lives. It is to our benefit, and the benefit of the organizations we work for (or own) to understand the systems that we use. We should know what we can and cannot do with these systems and how it impacts our ability to be productive. 

It may sound rudimentary but it isn’t the norm. Watch the work that goes on around you and throughout the organization(s) you work for. You will see that most people don’t know any more than the most basic of system functions. In your observations you may even recognize the “stars” of the company who seem ultra productive and can make their systems perform. Typically these people are not IT Department people, but people who have developed an understing the systems they use. They leverage these systems to their fullest potential to become more productive. These are typically the “go to” people in an organization if a system problem or question arises.

This raises two specific questions;

1. Shouldn’t everyone in the organization have this type of understanding about the systems and technology they use? 
2. If they did, how productive could the organization become?

I would like to challenge the business managers in an organization to take responsibility, and not simplyoversee the work being done, to understand their systems and their organizations dependence on them. This includes ensuring that their staff fully understands the systems they utilize, has access to the right training, and is encouraged to become more efficient through leveraging the systems they have access to.

I know from my own experiences that the managers that take this responsiblity for enhancing productivity in their organizations become more productive. The higher the manager is in the organization that takes on this responsibility the more productive the organization will become. There will be less end user error, wasted productive time, and better streamlined workflow.

It is impossible to know everything about your systems. The technical details need to be left to the specialists. What we are referring to here is to take personal responsibility for understanding the usage of the systems you use to create efficiencies. In a day and age where we can squeeze every drop out of our productivity, the irresponsible systems user who doesn’t know how to use the help button is a shining beacon of organizational time wasted and inefficiency.

A business colleague of mine and I started on a discussion about management delegation the other day. We discussed a class of manager that exits who successfully delegates all possible personal accountability away to their subordinates. We then discussed the varying methods that some will use to ensure that if anything goes wrong the delegated party(s) will take the fall for it.  We had a few laughs about how some of managers we have met, many senior executives, who would go about putting themselves into this position, and the poor people who were held accountable. We then went on to discuss how these types of managers appear to know very little about their area of responsibility. I thought a portion of that discussion would make a good topic.

Playing off my first post, management paradox, I thought it was worth a minute or two to discuss the main issue in managerial delegation as we see it today. As managers we are trained to delegate in order to get more done. We are supposed to use delegation as a tool to become more productive, more efficient. While this is the case for most delegations there is an apparent fatal flaw in the system that we witness among managers. Delegation is a management tool that needs to be managed, not a management methodology in itself.

Now this is an important statement that in my experience isn’t pondered enough by managers. Delegating a task, responsibility, or accountability is an essential part of a manager’s role, but that role does not end at the point of delegation. It ends at the delegated items completion.

As a subordinate working for various organizations I cannot count the number of times I have had a manager delegate a task to me and only show up to find out the tasks status. In the case of delegated accountability they only showed their head to point the finger or reemphasis things were not going as they should. Early in my management career I have been guilty of doing this myself. Then, at some point, I realized that as a manager I am responsible for the success and failures of those who work for me. It appeared to me that the more I share in the accountability as a manager the more of a leader I become.

The point that I’m trying to cover here is that as a manager we are responsible for managing the delegation process and all that it includes. It is our responsibility. We as managers need to be held accountable for whether or not the delegate has the proper time, resources, and abilities to complete the delegated assignment(s). Our subordinates and their success is our success, their failure, our failure. We are responsible to ensure that the right people are in the right positions, with the right resources, and are allocated the proper amount of time.

Now, I know there are a million variables that could potentially impact a manager’s situation such as inadequate resources, staff, and time. Those are our issues to face. We as managers are to guide the business’s outcomes to successful completion. Not spend the time finding ways to delegate away our accountability.