CAN YOU MANAGE MANAGING?

Managers are employees with emotions also. Not everyone is wired to be a manager. Even people with good intentions may not have the emotional grounding to stand in the middle of chaos. Some managers use the workplace to work out their own emotional issues. This isn't helpful and can lead to more emotional chaos. A manager must decide if they can handle the job and if they are willing to grow into the position. Management isn't about power; it is about leadership. Managers who do not have a good sense of their own emotions or leadership power may use the workplace to flex their autocratic muscles . Managers who are afraid are even worse .

Frightened managers clearly have no sense of themselves and their position as a manager. They may be overwhelmed and under-trained, or try to use force tactics to maintain authority because they have no other skills. Of course they may also just be mean people. But more than ever, when random emotions, chaos, or fears of terror and threat swirl around offices, the manager is under extreme pressure to be less afraid than his or her human counterparts or staff. This expectation is erroneous and dangerous. Managers are human also (well perhaps a few are not!) and are in a unique position to be either very helpful or very unhelpful to employees who are caught in an emotional spin. Most employees go to their jobs to work to survive their lives. After a hard day at work they may require additional support services to survive their jobs if they have a tyrannical manager who is attempting to maintain his or her own little kingdom of control. Employees need a certain level of leadership to feel safe and secure in their jobs, and that is what management is intended to supply. Managers who cannot manage are a risk.

Employees relate personally to perceived or real control issues at a work setting. From minor irritations to violent rages, employees react to their environment, and those who are held "hostage" by tyrannical managers at work are the least likely to maintain an emotional equilibrium under duress. Managers who are weak, indecisive, or frightened of making waves, do not add to the emotional stability of a company. Social scientists who have studied antisocial behavior in the workplace have found that dishonesty or unethical behaviors from management have influenced some employees to act counterproductively to the workplace. Emotionally frustrated employees apparently have a tendency to steal, manipulate records, slow pace, do poor work and essentially move from a high order of integrity and ethics to the lower status of the management. Managers set the emotional tone of a company.

Dysfunctional managers or supervisors come in a variety of styles:

• Hostile

• Violent

• Colluding

• Controlling

• Weak

• Manipulative

• Politically aggressive

• Wishy-washy

• Passive-aggressive

• Undertrained

• Emotional hostage takers

• Subtle Covert Emotional Terrorists

• Blatant, Overt Emotional Terrorists

Anyone who has ever been employed for any length of time has run into someone who manifests the qualities on this list. Clearly, managers are not the only employees who fall into these categories. But managers, who set the emotional tone in a company, can either stand in the midst of emotional content and add elements of competent and calm leadership, or toss emotional energy into the fray and add to the chaos. Managers, good, bad and neutral are in the midst of the action. A manager who does not have some sort of leadership presence in the turmoil is not managing. That leadership can come in the form of a physical presence, or a competent policy.

Managers stand in the middle of the small and large flows of human dynamic energy and have to deal with whatever comes their way. Good managers at their best are like midwives who stand at the apex of production to keep things moving. They don't necessarily have the baby or have the pain, but they are right there at the center of the action. Managers at their worst are people who create problems that stop the flow of production. They are afraid or ignorant of the birthing process and do not particularly like babies. Good managers and bad managers have the same work to do. How they do it is up to them. Managers have the same choices as everyone else. How these personal choices influence the work site emotional climate, production and eventually the bottom line, is usually up to what kind of choices these managers make. Managers are often seen as either wonderful mentors, inspirations, creative forces, and dynamic leaders or, at the other end of the emotional spectrum, as tyrannical and petty thieves who steal all the hope, life force, and warmth they can find to add to their own personal power addiction . Middle ground is not a common reaction to management.

Case Example

Misty was promoted to day shift Nurse Manager. She had never wanted to be a manager but appreciated the raise. She struggled for two years to make her best decisions about people and production. When the consultant arrived to help reorganize the company's administrative hierarchy, Misty had received a vote of "no-confidence" from former friends and colleagues. They complained she was a bad manager and that she spent some portion of every workday shut inside her office crying. Misty felt humiliated and made grand efforts to rise to the tasks required. She attended management trainings, read books, and talked with her family. She told the consultant that she regretted her decision daily when she saw the other nurses doing the nursing work that she missed. She had a passion for nursing but was now required to spend most hours in her office working on paperwork and mediating emotional issues between co-workers . Misty had come from a dysfunctional childhood home and hated conflict. She was relieved when the consultant encouraged her to return to the work she loved, as a floor nurse. Within two weeks the facility hired a Nurse Manager who had extensive managerial experience and was pursuing a career track toward administration. It was a better fit for all.

Learning Byte

This institution lost approximately 35 hours a week of productive time while the nurses were fussing and fuming about Misty's lack of managerial skills. Misty lost over 70 hours a week as she was becoming more and more consumed by her emotions and fears of failure. Misty had never been trained to deal with conflict and had entered nursing as a way to just help bodies get better, not feelings. The company policy now includes language that does not allow promotion from within based solely on seniority .

Management selection and hiring has a policy that includes such questions as "What experience or training do you have that will allow you to handle the extreme and minor emotions of employees?" It also has questions about willingness , competency, and training in conflict management and dispute resolution, and provides training dollars for non- industry-specific management training. In other words, a Nurse Manager needs management skills training in addition to medical seminars . This facility found that many independent companies provide management training and now support their managers attending non-medical courses. Nurse managers still must also maintain their industry-specific training requirements, such as continuing education units or CPR/First Aid status.

DO THIS : Evaluate your decision to be a manager on a regular basis. Look at how your company hires managers.

DON'T : Assume anyone can be a manager without advanced, ongoing training in management skills.