Manage your Manager? Or yourself?

There are countless types of managers and managerial styles. I have encountered many - managers that offered me nothing, others who feared conflict and thus added no value to anything or anyone, managers that really only cared about their personal agenda, managers who were intelligent but chaotic, managers with high expectations from everyone but gave nothing in return.

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Along the journey, most one of us at some point will strike gold and fall under a 'good' manager. I have been lucky enough to also have had managers who have been my advisors and mentors, managers who later became friends, managers who showed and displayed respect with a high level of ethical responsibility in the role that was awarded to them.

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When I mentor younger aspiring executives, I tell them something they don't expect to hear. It triggers thought and reflection.

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 "You have more to learn from a bad manager than a good manager"

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Let me say that again. The learnings you get from a bad manager far outweigh the learnings from a good manager. It's not that you don't learn stuff from good managers…by no means am I insinuating that. The positive traits displayed by a good manager are however often left unnoticed or simply taken for granted and as such, we forget to appreciate them and subsequently often forget them. On the contrary, we don't easily forget the bad moments that we had with or felt under a bad manager.

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Through these 'bad' experiences come the more valuable lessons. The first being, noticing and becoming aware of the traits that you yourself never want to be associated with. While being easily critical of what we don’t like in others, there are often times that we in fact find ourselves displaying those same unwelcome traits. And perhaps - like our bad managers - we will blame it on the circumstances, the pressure, the deadlines etc.

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So by remembering how uncomfortable, annoyed, disappointed or even insulted you felt, make sure you register those unwanted feelings, hard code them in your brain so that you never bring out those same feeling in your employees or peers.

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The most important learning of course is about YOU and you react and respond to situations. Let me elaborate. You obviously cannot control your manager, his/her personal agenda, his/her moods and you definitely don't control his/her core beliefs but what you definitely control is how YOU choose to manage your manager and the situation at hand. Managing how you react is the only thing that you fully own and therefore fully control. You’re in an uncomfortable situation, you don't enjoy your job. What are you doing about it? Think what you need to do, what you need to change, how you need to react in order to make an unbearable situation or relationship bearable. And I say 'bearable' because perhaps that's all you need to aim for - bringing it to a level where your positive energy is no longer drained. Just taking it to a level of basic balance and greater piece of mind.

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And at the end of the day…you don't like it?…leave. And don’t tell me "I can't, where do I go?" I am going to be as blunt as I can: If you choose to stay without reacting, then take the shit and shut up about it. But you always have the choice to do something. Open your eyes. See the options. So either stay and adapt or up and leave. No one is forcing you to stay. If you can't make it happen for yourself believe me...it's no-else's responsibility.

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I am not a fan of suggesting '5 ways to manage your manager' because every case is unique. I once had to confront my toxic manager by giving him a taste of his own poison just to get him to seriously and actively listen to me. That is not advice I would typically give, but the special circumstances with that particular manager called for extreme action. I acted in a way that was so not like me and in a way that I have never acted since. But it worked. So there is no magic recipe.

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Think. Find what works for you. Don't seek to change your manager, but seek to understand what you need to do to manage the situation. Make the unbearable bearable and then give yourself the time and space to think 'what could be my next move' to upgrade from bearable to 100% satisfactory and accomplishing. 

 

My mum's best friend always used to tell me the same thing over and over when I was young and in difficult situations (usually heartbreaks).."Character building".

 

Of course I didn't really appreciate the value of this statement at the time…but how true she was!

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