Discovery of the dysfunctional manager

As I began filling out the questionnaire, I was drawn deeply into the HR exercise. Each question described a specific work setting and quizzed how I would respond to it and handle the team members.

Each scenario recreated a vivid memory of my prior work experience. Drawing from my earlier instances of leading a team, I could relate to all the questions, and hence it didn’t take long to fill them out.

Almost gleeful, I quickly completed it and glanced around the room. My classmates were still poring over the dozen or so questions, given by the Organisational Behaviour (OB) Professor in our MBA class lecture.

While I had quit my technology job of 3 years to pursue a management degree, almost half of the class were freshers. Perhaps, it was an effort imagining the work scenario described and hence they needed more time.

Results time

As the Professor indicated time was up, the class quickly folded the papers and it was time to check the results. There was some nervousness in the air.

As with any OB exercise, this one on team leading and management styles had no right or wrong answers. But the responses were reflective of whether one’s influence on the team members and subordinates was positive or negative.

As the Prof started discussing the answers, it became apparent that most of the class fell into a moderate range of answers. But she was curious to find whether anyone fell into the negative extreme and asked for a show of hands.

In the entire class, just one hand went up and it was mine. To my utter horror, the same pattern repeated question after question. It was just me who had naturally chosen a negative style of management. Towards the end, the entire class began turning back to see if my hand went up again, and it did.

And I got a cold stare from all my friends, as if looking at some sadistic psychopath! For all my delusion of work experience and practical application, I was the only one who had a management style with issues to be fixed.

The dysfunctional manager

Horrified, I listened with rapt attention when the day’s concepts were covered after this exercise. Post the lecture, I promptly signed up for additional help to mend my management approaches and leadership styles.

Dysfunctional managers take all decisions for their team. Any time the team runs into issues, they are always available to help, rather than let the team struggle and learn. They are over-protective and over-accommodative of the team, to a fault. Unsure about delegation, they hold back the most critical tasks. End of the day, the team is not leveraged enough, they don’t learn and grow; while the manager is overworked, inefficient and organisation suffers.

With this newfound knowledge when I looked around, I could identify such managers in most teams and workplaces. Either to try and avoid risks in the project, or by blindly mimicking higher-ups, people get wedded to this style. And they confidently live this out all their lives not realising how much it hurts their team. And how much it hurts them, in turn.

Multipliers

Recommended by a colleague, I recently started reading the book ‘Multipliers’ by Liz Wiseman. This is a good book and a simple read covering this very concept of the dysfunctional manager.

Wiseman describes Multipliers as genius makers. They enable and empower everyone around, pushing them to give more than even they thought was possible. Hence, they make their team smarter and unleash viral intelligence.

On the other hand, Diminishes under-utilise people by hoarding resources and stifling others. They stay absorbed in their own intelligence, and hence their team languishes and gets frustrated. People finally leave, or worse, stay back in the organisation as deadwood.

“It has been said that after meeting with the great British Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone, you left feeling he was the smartest person in the world, but after meeting with his rival Benjamin Disraeli, you left thinking you were the smartest person.” — quote by Bono, from ‘Multipliers’

Thankfully, I learnt some hard lessons early on, from experiences like the one described above, from my MBA days. While reading Multipliers, I could relate to many of the progressive management styles with my current practices. Nevertheless, there is always something to learn and improve.