This is part whatever of my endless series on management.

I don’t know why, but I love being a manager. I have been in positions of people and team management for more than 16 years in both the for-profit technology sector and the non-profit various sector.

When I first became a manager, my thinking was – “this will be easy. I have a job description, just follow the job description, how hard can it be?”

Hard. Very, very hard. It turns out management has been both the most fulfilling and the hardest part of my work life.

One of the reasons for this is that 90 percent of management has nothing to do with task-oriented job descriptions and everything to do with relationships.

Wherever you have two or more humans together you get relational strife. People have different ways of communicating, different ways of listening, different styles of work, different expectations of their coworkers, unfortunate relational needs and, most importantly, varying degrees of mental strife and trauma that work themselves out in all kinds of healthy and unhealthy ways on the job.

Part of a manager’s job is to sift through all of this variety and try to weave it together into something of a harmonious whole that can work together and move forward on the greater mission of the department and ultimately the organization.

One of the most important things for a manager to remember (among many things) is that they have authority within their assigned realm. This sounds obvious but the instinct among many who take on the role is to lean into the even playing field, we’re all friends paradigm and forget that when the going gets tough they are the ones that have to make the hard calls.

This does not mean being a dick (or Dyck if you live in my area – inside joke alert) and abusing your authority like so many who think pure authority will get people motivated and working. It means being decisive when you are called to be decisive and exercising some of the King Solomon wisdom when two employees come to you both claiming ownership of the same baby.

Many managers get caught in the trap of reflecting the emotions they receive back at the one delivering it. After all managers are human and have the same struggles as everyone else. If someone screams at them there is a strong temptation to scream back etc.

The problem with reflecting is that it subverts your authority and brings the manager to the same level as the employee emotionally venting all over the manager’s face. Reflecting is never a good idea because it makes it difficult for the manager to take any appropriate disciplinary actions given that they just did the same thing the employee did.

Speaking of disciplinary measures I can tell you some stories. In nearly every circumstance where I have been hired as a manager, I have inherited strife, chaos and conflict, often years old, without having been told about it in advance.

On two separate occasions after I was hired I was told that “you’re probably going to have to fire that person because they have been X.”

“How long has X been going on?” I would ask.

“Oh for more than four years now.”

FOUR YEARS!?!? I mean hasn’t anyone done anything about this. What is going on? Sure enough, within hours of starting, the person’s problematic behaviour begins to rise up and assert itself and its authority all over the new manager.

Easy enough…I can just take a look at the record of disciplinary acts taken by the organization and fast track this person into a new career.

Except – you guessed it – there’s no evidence of any disciplinary action ever having been taken. No files, no letter of reprimand, not even an email. Nothing.

This is shockingly common.

This means starting from scratch (or sometimes simply releasing a person without cause and providing appropriate severance, something I have done more than once). This also means documenting EVERYTHING and ensuring you are following the personnel manual and the disciplinary process to a T.

Tip – a toxic employee MUST be removed from an organization as quickly as possible no matter how good they are at their job. You can teach skills; you can’t teach personality. Ideally when you are hiring you interview in a way to reveal toxic traits to avoid such people in the first place. I will always hire the better personality over the skill every day. The good news is that when a toxic person comes under a good manager, they often find their own way out. Ironically toxic people will often outlast bad managers because they are adept at bullying them out the door in various ways. Toxic people are experts at creating difficult circumstances.

For whatever reason I have become skilled as a manager at handling difficult teams and circumstances. It seems likely that this is as a result of surviving half a dozen trials by fire and actively seeking out mentors and training to keep my head above water. It might also have something to do with my wiring. Who knows?

What I do know is a smart manager learns quickly who their friends are and surrounds themselves with them. Typically, a manager’s best friends include the following:

THE MANAGER’S BEST FRIENDS

THE MANAGER’S MANAGER – Who’s your boss? Your boss is your best friend in all circumstances. In times of conflict and team strife it is VERY important to ensure you are fully communicating to your boss. You boss needs to feel like they are part of the solution to whatever problem they are facing.

To coin a clichéd (but good) piece of advice managers often give staff – “if you have a problem TELL ME, my job is to help you.” Ironically managers often don’t follow this piece of advice. The last person a manager often turns to in times of struggle is their boss. They don’t want to appear inept etc. But in reality, a manager needs to follow the same advice they give their staff and COMMUNICATE. You want your manager to feel like a collaborator. In this way they feel like they are doing their job. This makes them feel good.

EMAIL – Email is your best friend. Email lets you document EVERYTHING. Just had a meeting with a difficult employee who often does not hear what you think you just said? Send an email after the meeting along the following lines: “Hey thanks for taking the time to sit down with me. I left with the following takeaways and goals…etc.” Ensure there is no way someone can come back in a month and claim ignorance. Email is the third person in the room.

If you run into a problem with a staff member you immediately email your boss. “Hey there, just letting you know X just said the following inappropriate things to a client. I am following the disciplinary process, and this is where I plan on taking things to alleviate the issues. I don’t need you involved, just wanted you to be aware…etc.”

Tip – If you have to discipline or fire a staff member ALWAYS have a third-party present. Not another staff person but either your boss or HR. Someone with equal or greater authority than you. When you discipline via email always copy that third party.

HUMAN RESOURCES – Do you have an HR department? Unreal! Do you know how many managers work without having the benefit of an HR department to lean on? Most of them. Having an HR department is great. HR can often be the bad cop to your good cop, and they are ok with this. In fact, HR often expects to be the bad cop. A good HR manager and department wants you, as a manager, to succeed and have a good relationship with staff and will do whatever it takes to get you there because this reduces staff turnover – a very costly event in the life of an organization.

Just like your manager, copy HR on your periodic emails about issues and struggles. Seek advice. Do not hide issues, especially ones you are struggling to work through.

I cannot understate the value of a good HR manager as a resource to you.

POLICY & PROCEDURE – These are the lifeblood of any structured organization and a manager’s best friend and handbook. These are the boundaries within which staff freedom exists. Don’t have good policies & procedures you say? Well – start researching and drafting them for your boss and HR to review with your recommendation they get implemented. Don’t wait for others to do what you think they should do and suffer in the meantime – help make it happen and show initiative.

THE JOB DESCRIPTION – Every employee needs a thorough and well written job description with a clear set of expectations and goals. Without it you and the employee are flying blind. If you join an organization and find out staff do not have decent job descriptions, sit down with them immediately and collaboratively create them. This is VERY important.

THE REVIEW – I perform two reviews for my staff ever year. A formal annual review with a written component for them to have and a mid-year, informal review that is conversational and lets us course correct if scope creep has been occurring, or problems have arisen etc. The mid-year review is almost more important than the formal annual review because it means your staff are not blindsided by a poor annual review. It gives you the opportunity to gently, but formally, put a person back on track.

I like to take my staff out for lunch during reviews…it helps ease the stress and anxiety they may feel going into it.

Reviews and job descriptions seem like no brainers, but I have worked for numerous, well known, global organizations where neither existed. Really.

THE TEAM MEETING – Weekly or bi-weekly this is the time to sit down and talk about the week ahead. Who’s doing what? Why? Where? When? This is when we learn about surprises and obstacles. This is also the time when staff get reminded that they’re all humans working together toward a common goal.

Tip – as manager you need to run this meeting. You’re the chair. You’re in charge. Keep it on track. Take uncomfortable content one on one outside of the meeting. Never reprimand or have uncomfortable conversations in front of other staff (or people in general).

THE TEAM – Never forget why you are a manager. It’s not for task completion or a bigger salary and a nicer office. It is 100 percent for your team. Your first and most important job is finding out about and removing obstacles from in front of your team.

Sure, it’s great that you used to be the top widget maker in the company before you got promoted to manager but, like it or not, this is no longer your job. Stop making widgets and start helping your team become good widget makers. Many managers forget this when they are hired or promoted. They still feel like a widget maker. Their value is attached to making widgets. If the manager cannot transition to the manager mindset eventually what you have is a team without a manager – you get a team with an extra widget maker who sometimes pulls rank…this creates confusion and conflict.

This is a good time to stop and remind you that your boss whether they are a senior manager, CEO, executive director or board chair, has to follow the same rules. You are their employee, and they need to manage you according to the same principles. This is why you MUST communicate. It makes their job easier.

THE MENTOR – You need a mentor. You need a person or people you can sit down with and talk to about all of the shit you have been dealing with. Someone who is a peer or has more experience. Ideally someone from outside of the organization but inside works too.

Let me tell you a secret – you can tell your mentor anything. There is a code of confidentiality between a person and their mentor. It is important you have someone you can trust that you can open up to.

No manager is an island complete unto themselves, you are connected and need to be connected to others. Take advantage of this with mentors.

Mentors come in all shapes and sizes and ages. They can be a parent or spouse if you are fortunate enough to have one with the relevant experience to help; they can be a friend; a peer or even a formal mentor from a mentoring organization.

The value of mentors is the outside perspective they bring. You can often become to close to a situation (or emotionally compromised as Spock would say). In these circumstances a mentor can offer a valuable 10,000-foot view of the situation and provide important tips and insights you may have missed.

MANAGEMENT DEVELOPMENT

What do you mean you never had any training to be a manager?

I’m just kidding, almost every person promoted or hired to management has never had any formal management training. Shocking I know but true.

Most managers were once great performing employees everybody liked. Then one day a position opened, and they were encouraged to apply.

The reality is that most managers in both the for-profit and non-profit sectors were once simply subject matter experts with a passion for the product. They were never managers.

“Hey, you’re a fantastic widget maker and everyone likes you…you would be a great manager.”

Unfortunately, nothing about that statement is true. A good manager doesn’t have to know how to do what their team does, as useful as it is sometimes to have them step in and fill a gap. No, as we discussed a good manager knows how to manage people. That’s their job.

Often what ends up happening when someone is promoted into management is the company loses a fantastic widget maker and gains a shitty manager. Productivity suffers, turnover increases and chaos rises up. And you know what else happens? By the time the manager or the company realizes its mistake you cannot reverse it. You cannot put the manager back into their old role and hire a new manager because there is a new and uncomfortable dynamic between the former manager and their co-workers.

It is also not fair to a new manager to have the old manager still part of the team. It creates a challenging divided authority scenario where staff set up the old manager as an informal authority figure against the new manager when it suits them.

Many good managers have survived this above experience and somehow been forged into decent, if not great managers. Over time they learn the value of pursuing training and development and actively seek it out. Not widget training but management training in the form of seminars, conferences, certificates and degrees or diplomas. Most quality organizations will support and fund this because the value of a good manager is immeasurable.

FINAL COMMENTS: THE HUMAN MANAGER

Managers are human (at least until AI takes over).

As a manager you need to like people. I mean it. You MUST like people in general and up close. If you do not like people do not become a manager. Go become a park ranger or something and work alone.

You cannot fake liking people either. Other people are VERY skilled at sniffing out the disingenuous. If you don’t like people, you will be found out. Conflict will be your crown, and your staff will not tell you anything.

Once again you must genuinely and authentically like (dare I say love) people to be a good manager.

If you do like people congratulations but beware.

Sometimes managers become friends with their staff. This is fine but know this – it adds an incredible level of difficulty to the life of a manager. How? If you cannot spread that friendship evenly usually petty jealousies arises, conflict can increase and you become the parent that one of your kid’s accuses of loving the others more.

Tip – I do not follow any of my staff on social media. Sometimes my staff have followed me, but I actively avoid them. This is a small way of keeping professional distance.

If I do find myself becoming friends with one of my staff, I absolutely close that door during work hours. This can be hard but with the right communication to the friend ahead of time it can be done.

Managing friendships at work is not about what is fair and just, it is about what is smart and keeps the team strong.

Be careful.

Don’t micromanage. You hired people/manage people who were hired to do the job they do. You don’t need to do that job. You don’t even need to know how to do that job. You need to focus on making sure they can do that job. DON’T MICROMANAGE!

After you start as a new manager take time with the whole team to introduce yourself, your experience, and your management style. Have them go around the room and introduce themselves. Talk about one thing you enjoy that has nothing to do with work (I like to write poetry) and encourage, but don’t expect, the same in return from staff.

Then, and this is important, have one on one meetings with your team members (maybe over lunch) and get the lay of the land. How have things been? What was it like before you arrived? How well does the team work together etc. This helps build a realistic picture of what you are inheriting. Request the same type of meeting from your boss afterward and relate some of what you have learned.

Regardless of whether you have difficult or easy circumstances being a manager can be one of the most fulfilling roles of your life. It draws on every human experience you have ever had. It requires an enormous number of skills and, most importantly, to be a good manager, you need to be a good human.

Have fun.