I recently became a father again, when my wife gave birth to our baby girl. We are currently in full baby mode, nappies, feeding and sleep deprivation! Going through this, and appreciating the role of being a parent, also made me consider the role of managers. Now before anyone calls it out, I’m not saying there is or isn’t any link between these two roles or any real correlation, just I’ve had time to think and let my mind wander, when feeding my daughter at 3am!
As we know, the working world is in a constant process of change and the success of a manager depends on their ability to keep pace with these changes and be a role model for their people. Organisations are moving toward more flexible structures, being more agile and less hierarchical, so managers will have to change their role to be adaptable and to think and act on their feet. All these qualities are essential for the manager of the future
Manager of today
I have increasingly found that manager is a bad word in some organisations, has a stigma attached and is not something people want to be associated with. One of the reasons for this is that most individuals are promoted on their specialist knowledge, not on being a good manager. This means people who are promoted often keep doing what they were doing before but at a more frantic level, causing the people who work for them to become disillusioned.
Many of today’s managers believe that meeting the needs of their people means that they have to have all of the answers, solve all the problems, and “tell” others how to implement their solutions. Managers often present their set of assessments, telling their people what they believe, followed by what they want them to do. Later, managers check in to be sure the job was done correctly, and then tell people how to improve or change to meet their standards or those of the business. With the manager of the future, this won’t be effective or deliver the required results. The manager role needs to be forward looking, not backward looking; it’s about being responsive not reactive to the environment.
Over time, many organisations have turned the manager role into a transactional process role. This may be what the organisation needed, what some people expect and what they signed up for when they became a manager for the first time. But the manager role has evolved significantly in recent times and if I’m being honest, for current managers, the future looks bleak. However, for those who want to coach and develop people, your time has arrived.
Manager of the future
The manager of the future needs the skills to hold honest, real conversations with their people and consider the whole person – not just the part that comes to work. The manager’s role needs to be more of a coach and is one of “ask not tell.”
With this, they need to ask their people how they want to assess themselves, what they observe about their own actions, and how they want to approach their own improvement. Managers need to engage their people in real conversations that value the person’s experiences and points of view. They will access experiences from inside and outside of the workplace, regarding their people as “whole people” and tapping into their passions, knowledge, and experience. If managers can do this well, in return they will receive the most valued contribution their people can make and their discretionary effort. Working with people in this manner requires real coaching skills and the ability to ask powerful questions!
You can start by asking about goals. What does “success” mean to that person? The answer may surprise you! When you show an interest in the whole person, you can find out how to help that person reach that definition of “success.”
Tomorrow’s world
An effective manager get results by making clear what needs to be done, why it should be done and how. All of which leads to increased engagement, and the correlation between employee engagement and discretionary effort is very evident. This is exactly the difference in performance achieved by managers who ask rather than tell, who engage rather than push away, and who see their job as building capability instead of managing tasks. So for both developing talent and leading an organisation to new heights, it comes down to a few simple rules – engage each person as a whole person, ask powerful questions, and coach your people to success.
The future is now for managers, and only the great managers will survive – those who know how to ask powerful questions and coach their people, allowing everyone to see their own successes, challenges, opportunities, and even the need for change.
