News »Browse Articles » Managers and Supervisors Don`t Understand their Job Function

Studies have shown that over 90% of managers and supervisors (including team leaders, who have the harder job of leading without authority) receive no formal management training prior to getting their positions. There is a popular myth, “If you are good at the job, you will be good at supervising people who do the job.” Unfortunately, the skills involved in managing people are not the same as those involved in doing the job.

Many companies think that the best way to train a new manager/supervisor is through on-the-job training. Because managers often aren’t trained properly, they can make critical mistakes that affect respect, productivity, and morale. The most critical: not being loyal to management.

ACTION ITEM: Teach the importance of loyalty to management.

If you are an executive, make this one of the important expectations for your management team.

Here’s what loyalty to management looks like:

• Understand that a manager’s top priority in this position is to CYA, regarding the company.
• Management on all levels, however, can disagree with each other, even senior managers. But when managers discuss disagreement with company policy, they should always do so in private.
• Once a final policy decision is made, whether he is in agreement or not, each manager owns it as if he personally made the decision himself.

This requires that no single manager separate himself from management when talking with the team. For example, instead of saying “My manager decided,” say, “We decided.”

When employees know that managers aren’t in agreement, negativity increases and productivity flounders. Staff spends time gossiping about why that particular manager “lets them get away with…”whatever. All managers have seen this routine.

In order for managers/supervisors to be loyal to their company, they must know and follow company policy and procedure. These policies are there to protect the company, but also to act as guidelines for expectations. In addition, managers can make better decisions when they know exactly what company policies are.

ACTION ITEM: Teach policy and procedure to your management team. Help managers understand how to work within these parameters to make good, sound decisions.

If you are an employee, ask your manager about a policy/procedure you are not clear about. This will allow you to learn it together.

This is one of the biggest challenges I see in organizations across the U.S.: managers are not loyal to each other. What often happens is called “silo management” where mangers make “their own rules.” Managers figure that, since they have been given authority, they can “do it their way.”.Partially true; management has to realize that they can “do it their way” if their authority:

1) falls within policy and procedure 2) supports other managers

You see, managers forget that they are part of a team (only 10% practice loyalty to management!), as well as the leader of a team—and that team is the management team.

If 48% of managers do not know, understand, and follow company policy and procedure, and 38% “might” do so, then it makes sense that 56% are not loyal to management.

Source:
http://www.hrguru.com/news/articles/1662-killer-2-managers-and-supervisors-dont-

No Comments For This News

Post a link to something interesting from another site, or submit your own original writing for the JOSO community to read.