Who Wants to be a Manager?

Like the rest of the planet you started off your career at the bottom of the food chain. Everyone around in the office knew you weren't expected to accomplish anything important in the first few days or even months. You were paid to just exist and crib - which you did in plenty. You cribbed to other low life around you and complained that you were underpaid and overworked even while you took long coffee breaks and longer lunch breaks. You complained how unfair life was treating you because you were doing all the grunge work while your manager got all the attention.

You complained and you dreamt - of being a manager. You imagined the good life of a manager. You ran errands for all the important people. Those people who call themselves “Manager” were the charmed lot and the envy of the bright and eager trainees. So when you went back to the hole in the wall room, you lay on the bed, stared at the ceiling and wondered when you would become like that person in the hallway running your own empire. For all the recently hired Trainees, having the power of life and death over your life seemed such a cool job to have. What you did not know is how that manager got his/her knuckles rapped when someone in the team slacked off and did less than sterling work. You did not know the nights that person spent tossing and turning deciding whether to distribute an impossibly small increment budget across all the team members or to give someone a a lot more and displease the rest and ruin team morale in the bargain. That Job Title seemed to be ultimate in aspiration. You prayed for the day when you would move from being worker bee to being a MANAGER! Like that game show, you want to play Who Wants to be a Manager? Being a first time manager is not easy. You will tell me that you have been reading every article in the management section of your newspaper. Your bookshelf now boasts of Jack Welch's wisdom, The Art of War and a country made revolver. Clearly you are eager to go off in all directions. Let me pose a few questions:

How many of the team members work for you because it value adds to them professionally? Are you able to articulate the tasks into clear chewable size buckets? Does a conversation with you throw more light than heat? After working for you for a year would they say that they are now more valued as professionals than they were before? Do your team members grow because of you or despite you. Does your giving them on going coaching and feedback have anything to do with their professional growth? Some managers are good at attracting talent, but cannot retain them. Trust you are not one of them.

Would your team hire you again? Are you able to explain to the Young Turk that he/she is not ready to take up the next big role without the person feeling cheated? Despite terrific performance in the current role can you tell the top salesperson that he is not ready to be a Sales Manager because the competencies needed in the other role are different. If you got to know in advance, that the bright eyed and bushy tailed Trainee in your department will not get a promotion and get a smaller pay raise as compared to trainees (all hired from the same college last year) in other departments, would you give your team member a higher raise just so you don't become unpopular? After you spent a year leading your team and they had a chance to decide whether to renew your contract as a manager, would they?

What am I driving at? Being a manager is about making choices. If you have a strong need to be popular with everyone, you will find it tough to be a fair manager. We all like to be loved and be popular. In any role that involves making choices in favor of one person or group versus the other, the favored group may adore you even as the others stick pins into voodoo dolls. Making choices is not for the faint hearted. That is why politicians, managers and leaders fail despite best intentions. It is good to be able to fairly listen to two opposing views and yet vote in favor of one, as long as the payoffs outweigh the price of that choice. Each decision will make someone unhappy. Learning to live with disapproval is a tough life lesson. Many parents have learnt that the hard way that kids want you to be a parent not a friend and the best outcome is if you can be a friendly parent. But be a parent you must! The first time managers also veer between being a friend and being a manager. It need not be an either/or choice. The decisions taken could be driven by logic and data while being implemented with a touch of heart. A first time manager who finds it tough to handle disapproval runs the risk of changing managerial decisions to appeal to the lowest common denominator. If asked to distribute a merit increment budget across a group of top performers are you still able to reward the top 10% disproportionately and still maintain the team's cohesiveness? If you have said no to most of the questions raised above, then maybe you are better off not playing (at least not yet) Who Wants to be a Manager?