DO YOUR MANAGERS ACTUALLY MANAGE?
The flip side of micromanagement is undermanagement, and it’s more common than you think. When you look at management styles you will often see micromanagement as a central topic and undermanagement overlooked.
Undermanagement generally means there is not enough management being done, certain behaviours drive this result – lack of accountability, performance management and a tendency to want to be liked and so managers avoid conflicts and challenging conversations.
In small businesses, owner-managers are often pulled in all directions at once. They often wear the operations manager, finance director, customer service manager hat, along with many others at the same time. Managing staff is frequently squeezed out due to the pressure of the day to day too often when staff make mistakes, we hear “it’s common sense, he/she knows that”. But mistakes happen on a regular basis and this is a direct result of under management.
Delivering results should be the priority, it’s how you go about achieving this, pushing people and holding them accountable won’t always make you a popular manager and you will need to be comfortable with some level of conflict with this management style.
Understanding conflict and how not to avoid it but to deal with it constructively and effectively will improve your end results and help you to achieve realistic goals for you, the team and your business.
Is under-management going on in your business?
Recommended reading:
For more on the subject of undermanagement see a great article on HBR: by Victor Lipman https://hbr.org/2018/11/under-management-is-the-flip-side-of-micromanagement-and-its-a-problem-too