You Make the Call

Group dynamics are interesting.

For the person moving into management, he now has a different peer group to relate to. In many instances, he has lost his secure self-image as well. Now he is the low man on the totem pole in the new peer group.Reaction is often to act based on how he thinks his peers expect him to rather than as he used to. His personal experience with managers heavily influences how he acts as well, regardless of what he thought about those managers.

For his former peers, they no longer see him as one of us but as one of them. He now has power over them (real or imagined). Trust evaporates until a new relationship is established. Some members of the group will be inclined to challenge his new authority in an attempt to maintain or increase their position in their group hierarchy.

An organization with a people oriented culture will mentor the new manager both prior to and after his role change. Organizations without this culture will not, and his success as a leader will be based on his character and prior experiences with other business leaders.

I suspect managers who demand blind obedience to assumed policies and those who?s standard response to any perceived questioning of their decisions is ?Because I said so?, are the managers who were left to develop without any guidance and with poor role models to choose from.

I think that the problems arise because the managers begin to take things the wrong way and get a big head. Although what causes that to happen, I don't know.

I do know though, when I was a manager for a business. I was always told I was the most liked of the rest of them. I was really basic about things. I used to work in an auto shop and managed four mechanics. I would take in the cars and set up the work orders and then assign it to the appropriate person. I had only two rules. 1. I don't care what you are doing as long as you aren't hurting anyone and the customers cant see it. 2. You best make sure you finish your work on time if you're screwing around.

I liked treating them fair. I never asked them to do something thatI wouldn't do. EVER!

They really liked that mentality. I NEVER had a problem with them. And they would always stick around after the day to help me finish up my work that needed to be done, where they would just leave the other managers with it.

My mentality on that type of attitude I used was basically because I thought about what I didn't like with management I had to deal with before. I liked the approach and thought that it was fair for both parties. And it worked VERY well.

Ithink that managers that are not very good at it, basically are stuck in their power trip and maybe scared of failing. So they just dictate to everyone. They soon begin to forget what it was like on the receving end, and begin to turn into what they used to dispise (despise)?? can't remember the spelling...

Maybe it should be written into law that all management type personel are required to watch Office Space at LEAST once a year to get a refresher on life in Corporate America...

Mrafrohead

I too once joined the ranks of middle management in retail and was confused as you are. Everyone has a high self opinion and desire to be in charge or feel they are just as worthy or should of gotten the "job". However, not everyone applies themselves to it and expect management to offer said job, it's just human nature. Also now you have power over them and now "not one of the guys" even if it's soo little power. When it happened to me I got alienated and management kept telling me I'm one of them now (management) and I need to distant myself to be objective that my feelings would cloud my judgement. At times I fell into the trap, but when I saw unfairness by management I thwarted their every attempt at the expense of my career with the company, despite my productive enhancements to company. In the end the people that thought I sold out saw my true colors but their was still the "distance" till I got fired for meddling too much. Out of all of it I learned many things about myself andto this day I'm proud of the way I handled myself, because that future I was banking on with that company wouldn't have lasted due to now declining business and tactics that I hear from others that are still employed.

A poor parent doesn't know how to balance being a teacher (disciplinarian sometimes) and being a friend. Likewise, a poor manager has trouble balancing wanting to be everyone's friend and having to make hard decisions.
The way I've kept that balance is like this:
I know that there's decisions that I'm going to have to make sometimes that are not going to please everyone under me so I also have to accept the fact that I'm going to have to put more effort into doing things that actively demonstrate that I'm a friend too.
One can't think that you can add something to one side of the equation and the other side will balance out automatically - it takes a lot of thought.
Footing for the occasional pizza Friday or stocking the fridge with some favorite drinks goes a really long way with minimal cost for the ROI.
Best of luck to any new managers reading this.