Here are four phrases that may be accepted by tyro subordinates as complimentary or encouraging but may send shivers down the spines of experienced staff when they hear them from the wrong tongues.
We will back you up
A long time ago, when I was working in a financial institution, I was called away to conduct an investigation at a small branch. Turning up with my team, we found basic operational omissions by the 26-year-old running the branch: like failure to balance daily receipts with banking-in, creating conditions that allowed a fraud to run uncovered for a year. It got scary finding out about power cuts resulting from non-payment of electricity bills: imagine the impact if rumours go round that a financial institution have no money to pay its bills.
You would wonder what a 26-year-old with four years experience is doing running a branch. Basically what happened was that they were short of managers and so designated this 26-year-old to run the branch, promising, “We think you can fast-track to manager and don’t worry, we will back you up. If you need anything just ask: we are always behind you.”
Well, there was no close monitoring of the more mundane operational work and no follow up on his management of the back-room. The critical infrastructure of mentoring wasn’t just inadequate, it wasn’t thought of at all. And the volatile mix of ignorance, not wanting to look the fool and youthful ambitions just did the rest.
Lesson: If you hear these words, just swallow your ego and bang the door down to ask for help. Often, the universe of what you don’t know is much bigger than you expect. If your boss don’t set up the mentoring and monitoring sessions, pester them until they do. If in the end you still feel your boss has not done enough to guide you, make friends with an experienced manager with a different chain of command so that you have an alternative avenue to raise your concerns.
You are empowered
It sounds so nice isn’t it? It gives the leadership team the feel that they have a mentoring culture and the company is among the elites they read about in management articles. Until the empowered manager start making mistakes.
Somehow, managers seem to think empowerment is conferring an authority to make decisions to someone already capable of making such decisions. That, is a promotion, not empowerment and a change in pay grade must come with it. Empowerment is delegating authority that belongs to you to someone else for them to practice making those decisions, so that they can do it without you eventually.
So, if you were to empower, you have to create an environment for the person to make mistakes: how else will that person learn? Your job will be to catch those mistakes before they have any discernible effects. Failure to catch those mistakes make those mistakes yours. So, when you empower somebody, you need to hold close monitoring and coaching sessions to go through not just what decisions were made but also that were the thought processes behind those decisions so that you can assess the level the subordinate is at and guide them with the benefit of your vast experience. And an environment where the person feels comfortable to raise questions with you without repercussions. It is not something you do at a management meeting table and best done in the safety of a private office free from judging ears, including yours.
Lesson: If you hear these words, make sure you have those mentoring and coaching sessions. If there is any decision you are unsure of, make sure your boss sign off on it - in a document. Remember that empowerment means you are not yet recognised as having the authority and that is reflected in your salary. Make sure the person whom you think is paid enough will shoulder the responsibility of the decision.
Only you can explain to boss
It is so common isn’t it? You call for a meeting with the heads of department and the number of attendees is a multiple of the number of departments involved. Sometimes you see very junior staff two or even three levels down. You have department heads who bring them along under the guise of giving them experience. Well, experience is often obtained from observation: when the junior person is asked to speak at such meetings, they are just sacrificial lambs.
Often, the number of persons representing the department is proportionate to the crisis it is in. Managers sometimes bring staff far down the line to explain the technicalities of problems so as to distance themselves from the problem. It is an unsavoury sight to witness a head of department joining the senior boss in reprimanding the junior staff, effectively casting themselves as the judge, not the accused.
One company I worked at had a philosophy of “If we pay you to be a manager, then you behave like a manager” Bringing downliners to meetings is frowned upon. The idea is that if the head is not able to explain, then obviously they are not managing. Bear in mind, the CEO needs a bigger picture view than the department head and if the department head is not able to explain the technicalities in terms relevant to the CEO point of view, something is badly wrong, isn’t it? CEOs shouldn’t be taking an interest in technicalities that department heads cannot understand.
Lesson: If you hear these words, try to figure out what your boss’s boss is after - often it is not the technicalities, but the management impact of those technicalities. Work out a solution that would address the big boss concerns and would make your boss look good: then let your boss sell the solution like it is theirs. You can attend the meeting but try not to speak: sit next to your boss at the meeting (or take the chair behind your boss if you are not allowed at the big table). Keep pushing the info to your boss when the question comes up so your boss is the one presenting it, making sure the info prepared is simple & big picture and not too technical. Keep referring to your boss presence at meetings resolving the problem and praise/thank your boss for their leadership in the solution - it helps cement them to the solution that they should be taking responsibility for.
You know what to do
I have to explain this one. It usually takes place after hours or just before knocking off time. The boss drops by your cubicle for an informal chat and just before leaving, gives you some instructions to do something, almost as an afterthought. After your boss leaves, you realised that of the three sentences the instructions came in, two of them contradicted each other and the third is just ... ambiguous.
Welcome to the world of boss-think - they think so fast that the words couldn’t catch up. Or sometimes, they are thinking of something, having just shifted from the preceding discussion that was on something else, providing an incorrect context to their instructions.
This is normally in the realm of communication skills and lapses like this can happen occasionally to the best of us, especially in times of distraction, stress or age. The trick is always to catch such miscommunication early before the effect has gone too far and the problem is where you get blamed for misunderstanding vague instructions. Even when a basic principle of communication states that it is the responsibility of the person initiating the communication to ensure that the recipient adequately understand the communication.
Lesson: If you hear these words, reflect whether you are clear about not just what is to be done but also why your boss wanted it done. If there is any shred of doubt, a quick email/message exchange will determine whether your suspicion is correct and warrant a follow-up conversation. Don’t do the what without knowing the why.
Managing your boss is never easy but then again neither is being a boss. You can help them by looking at the situation from their point of view but you may have to protect yourself as well.
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