Audience: Senior Leaders
Overview: Some thoughts on how to help struggling managers with their well-being
By: Cynthia Kyriazis, Chief Experience Officer, The Culture Think Tank
I recently read a post entitled How Flexibility Made Managers Miserable.
The title says it all...doesn’t it?
For the past couple of years, those of us who have worked with frontline staff and senior leaders have seen and heard and, in some cases, felt their challenges. But in 2022 the struggle of middle managers became increasingly evident.
Our Feelings Index is a prime metric for measuring a healthy culture. In 2022, we saw a marked increase in the numbers of managers feeling distanced…not only from the organization and their supervisors, but from their own staff.
If leaders fail to ask, acknowledge, not listen or worse yet…not care…why wouldn’t managers feel disconnected?
Peter Drucker reminds us that the middle is rarely an easy place to be when he said ”The productivity of work is not the responsibility of the worker but of the manager.” Managers are the ones who need to make sure the right things are getting done, consistently, on time, and under budget. What has changed is how we prepare them for success in this role in an ever-changing work environment.
Organizations need to do what they can to prevent managers from developing a minimum work mindset, avoid feelings of wanting to leave the organization or experiencing physical and mental health issues. Psychological safety is key.
So based on our data and metrics along with my own history as an executive coach, I wanted to share some thoughts on what to consider in addressing managers needs to bring some relief and still keep focus on organizational goals:
One of the quotes in the post is from someone in an IT company who said “You need to update your company culture, have online routines set up for your team and place your trust in them on a completely new level.” As much as I agree with this sentiment, what it suggests is neither fast nor easy, yet the manager’s job is to get things done.
Routines and Rituals. An important part of helping managers involves encouraging them to set up routines for themselves and their staff—online and otherwise. The sooner the better. Some managers might have already done this, but for those who haven’t, it’s important to let them know how important routines are for getting things done and reducing stress.
Discussing routines with direct reports on a calendared weekly or bi-monthly basis helps determine priorities and improve performance. Reports can include who, what, when and most importantly how these activities will be measured. The manager learns what needs attention, what’s going well and hears how the team or team lead is flourishing or struggling.
There is another big win for this approach.
Routines beget rituals. And rituals tend to automate taking actions. Rituals are tied to a routine.
For example, brushing your teeth at bedtime is a routine you’ve agreed with yourself to do on a regular basis. So if it’s bedtime, the ritual tells you it’s time to brush your teeth. You don’t have to think about it. It’s not another thing to add to your to-do list. Your mind automatically does it. It has become a ritual.
Setting up routines and rituals is powerful in another area. We regularly see data with employees expressing a need for leaders to ‘Stop Micro-Managing Us.’ This data isn’t a surprise to us…the surprise was how often it’s being expressed. Routine meetings can help alleviate this.
Leaders can be proactive in setting up routine meetings with their managers and asking the same 3-4 standard questions each time. This approach sets expectations, improves information delivery, demonstrates outcomes and enables both managers and leaders to then spend more time in the role they were hired for. It contributes to everyone’s well-being.
Mental Health
Human skills. I remember early last year speaking with a leader about their organization’s falling connectedness scores when all of a sudden, this person said “I wasn’t trained to be a therapist.” This was the first time I heard a statement like this, but not the last. I began hearing similar sentiments at the managerial level and seeing an increase in anxiety levels, which is a leading indicator of culture and well-being in an organization.
Managers are expected to deliver bottom-line results. We hire, train, and promote them to get the job done. This role requires analyzing, planning, and creating forward, measured movement. What we have historically referred to as ‘hard skills’.
But do we prepare managers for working through and managing the inevitable and varying aspects of human interaction? Those skills we have historically termed as ‘soft’?
For the better part of my career, I’ve been fighting against the term soft skills. We are beginning to see, understand and acknowledge there is nothing ‘soft’ about skills that teach you how to work with, lead, and nurture others and still get the job done. What I’m hearing more of these days are the terms ‘human-centered’ skills or ‘human skills.’ Yes. Exactly.
Investing in the training and coaching needed in human skills is critical now more than ever. Yet in many instances, human-centered skills receive less training and coaching dollars.
Which brings me to…
Coaching and Feedback. The other day someone told me ‘feedback’ had become a dirty word! Why? Coaching and feedback are communication skills that go hand in hand with helping employees learn and grow. They require learning how to sincerely demonstrate compassion and empathy while keeping an eye on making sure the work is getting done.
When I was training to become an executive coach, I had over 65 hours of instruction in these skills. They aren’t something that is learned overnight and they require consistent practice in a safe environment. Again, psychological safety is a key element.
Newly hired managers may not have had experience practicing. Seasoned managers may have forgotten how to do so successfully. Yet those of us who work with humans require these skills. Left unaddressed, anxiety and mental health issues escalate.
As with all learning, there are fundamental items and core concepts to learn and understand and then practice, practice, practice. Have you given your managers the attention they really need in this area? Take a step to do whatever is needed to begin to provide anyone who supervises with the tools they need and so they don’t feel like therapists but confident managers who can get the job done and still maintain a healthy mental space.
Trust
Trust is a non-negotiable in any healthy culture. Without it, things don’t really function well…if at all. It can move mountains, but at the same time can be lost through one poor encounter without knowing if it can ever be regained.
Developing a healthy culture takes time because it’s a living relationship that requires ongoing nurturing and support from leaders. Yet we need to begin somewhere.
Start by asking some questions about your own organization’s culture:
How secure and confident do individuals in the organization feel about their role?
How much organizational anxiety currently exists and how intense is it? The more anxiety is left unidentified or unaddressed, the intensity increases and the strength of your culture and employee well-being continue to decline.
Are your employees feeling connected or distanced…and by how much? Engagement doesn’t really tell us much. At issue are feelings because they are root cause. Do you know what employees want their leaders to continue, stop and start doing? Or is leadership guessing? Addressing this is where real cultural change begins.
What are your plans for implementing actions that begin to address employee leadership needs and concerns? When? How? Easy? Not really. Short-term? No. Because cultures are living relationships that need to be nurtured. Employees need to know that leadership listens, cares, and is ready to take the first action step. There is no better time than now to begin than now. After all, managers are in the middle, and we all agree that’s not a fun place to be.
Bottom line?
We define culture as a group of behaviors, thoughts and emotions within an organization that influences the environment. Investing in your managers is one way to begin to strengthen your culture.
Help them get what they need, create a place where they can practice and nurture them through their journey. And don’t forget to celebrate the wins. Then watch and see what happens.
Cynthia Kyriazis is the Chief Experience Officer at The Culture Think Tank. Her experience includes executive coaching, meeting facilitation, consulting and training.