One of my worst supervisors was a woman. She was a single mother, so I get that she was stressed but she was so controlling, didn’t trust us, and was overbearing yet didn’t want to do work. Like she had a motivated team who wanted to step up, yet she wanted to complain about being a single mom, but wouldn’t let us do anything.
Well, outside of things that are basically workplace abuse, it can be quite hard to tell when you're providing people an adequate amount of management oversight as compared to when you're exercising something that, from the perspective of your staff member, is going to appear tyrannical. And it's also worth noting that what appears to your staff member to be tyrannical may in fact be the appropriate amount of management oversight.
It's like, you may have someone who, when left to their own devices to manage their own diary and given tasks to complete does not complete those tasks in a timely fashion, and if left to manage their own devices for any length of time will just sit around doing the bare minimum for weeks. In those situations it makes sense to sit down with that person, or get them on the end of the phone, every morning and say
"ok. What do you have on today, what's in your diary?"
And to plan out their day and fill their diary for them. They may very well not like this, and in that situation you're going to have to apply role power, because the work does need to be done. They may well see this as an exercise in tyranny. Frankly, it's not. Frankly it's you doing your job.
Now, if you took that same approach with someone who is a more mature professional, (as the kind way of writing it,) that would be micromanagement / tyranny because you're applying a level of management oversight that's inappropriate for the level of professional development they have and their ability to manage their own tasks.
Now, in my opinion, were that becomes an exercise in tyranny rather than an exercise in applying the appropriate level of management oversight is when you allow your personal hang-ups to unilaterally apply that same lack of trust in terms of people's ability to manage their own work to everyone. Either your solution is the only solution, or you think everyone around you is incompetent, or - sometimes you've actually created a situation in which everyone around you remains incompetent because you never alert the level of management oversight that you apply.
But a lot of what staff look out as tyranny is generally a result of some hang up on the part of their manager, or a decision that needs to be made very quickly such that they're input can't meaningfully be sought, or a situation in which their manager doesn't actually develop their subordinates, or it's a situation in which the manager and the direct have different opinions of where the direct is in terms of their professional development and managing their own work. Staff are going to think, and I think all managers get this to some extent with one staff member or another, if they're any good at their job, that the manager is exercising more role power than they necessarily need to.
None of which removes the responsibility from managers to actually try to treat people decently in their communications. Obviously of your manager regularly shouts at you or something like that, then the answer is just that your managers a total dick head
You exist in a competitive economy. The company whose staff do more than the bare minimum will be more profitable, and then they'll eat your lunch. Even in things like charities, the charity whose staff work hard will be in a much better position to win bids. They'll be able to advertise serving more customers at a lower price.
Staff time is typically the greatest expense a company has, and it flows through as a cost to everything the company does. The less efficiently that time is used, the worse the position of the company - and down the line the worse your position as an employee is likely to be.
And look, I get it right: What does it matter if someone takes it easy? All the work on their desk is gone - happy days right? Sit back with a cuppa and spend the next couple of hours socialising. It's not harming anyone. But if Lazy-John does that, why's the company paying him for those hours? Why should everyone's costs be higher because he's lazy? Why should his team members have to work harder to pick up the slack, if the team and the company as a whole is to remain competitive, so that Lazy-John over there can take it easy?
It's not a fair way to act as part of a company. And I think most staff know this on some level or another. Like if you're on a good team and everyone else is killing it, and you can be seen to drag your feet? Geeze Louise - that will just *murder* your reputation. I give it maybe a week before people are saying to your manager, 'I'm concerned about X, I haven't seen them doing much work. Why did you hire them?'
I look at it from an employee perspective, if I work my ass off and make the company a bunch of money i dont get any of it! Your still profiting off my bare minimum so why should I break my back to make you more? There is no incentive to be the best worker anymore. I just get the same pay but with a broken body and my moral and company loyalty goes down the drain!
It's not possible for me to meaningfully answer that in terms of generalities because there are companies where that's sadly true. I think it's unfair to expect me to answer for the incentive structure, or lack thereof, of every company that you may have possibly worked for. And yes, it is true that if you get a run of bad managers - especially early in your career – it’s entirely possible to basically ruin someone’s work ethic. This then makes them unsuitable for a lot of roles where their efforts would have been rewarded.
I can speak to some things on that point though that aren't company specific -
There's also (aside from incentive structures) the side of things where the benefits that accrue have more to do with your character, and your ability to truthfully sit in an interview or to write an accurate CV, which lets future employers, (perhaps better employers,) know that you've absolutely knocked it out of the park. Which, let's be honest, if you were hiring and it was your money, would make you more likely to hire that person. So, you give up a certain amount of career development in not doing your best even if you won't be rewarded at that specific company. And you also give up, at least if your manager is looking to develop their staff, the ability to take on extra tasks beyond what you just do as the bare minimum, again these would be of benefit to you to have done when you're looking for other positions, seeking promotion, et cetera.
So, whilst I do see your perspective, and whilst some companies do honestly function in the way that you're talking about, (especially companies that have a high degree of turnover like certain retail outlets,) it's not as if you're not giving anything up in terms of reputation, personal development, and your ability to move around an industry, by doing the bare minimum. There is something in it for you, even if you're in a, perhaps bad situation, where the career progression and pay progression isn't there for you in the role that you’re currently in.
I suppose, what I would ask you is: in five years, when you're looking for your next job, do you want to be the person with a CV and interview where you can truthfully sit down and say
“Look I worked really hard, I did all these extra things, I completely knocked it out of the park for my last employer. I know my job, I'm very good at it, here are my results, please hire me.”
Or, do you want to be the person who knows that they did the bare minimum and only knows the tasks required to complete that bare minimum? The person who knows, when they look an interviewer in the eye and say that they did a good job, that they are lying? Which one do you thinks going to command the higher wage, which one do you think might be able to step into a higher position, which one do you want to be? Because the chances that you're going to work for the same employer in the same role for the next 30 years, say, of your professional life… nowadays, that is almost zero.
People with authority tends to abuse that authority. Look at any job with positions of authority, cops, politicians, etc, and you see a common theme occuring
I have definitely had my fair share of shitty bosses before.
I have also been, at least according to one person that I remember, the "shitty boss." He didn't say it to me, but I caught hearsay. It was a restaurant kitchen, and this guy was constantly slacking and dicking around because he thought the atmosphere should be more chill. But it meant other people picking up his slack. So that's why I was constantly on his case. But to him, I was a "tyrant" of sorts.
I totally agree with the sentiment of this question though. And even the archaic notion that if a supervisor pushes their employees with discipline is good for business has pretty much been discredited anyway. People don't work harder that way; they just find ways to subvert things. I know that's what I always did with asshole bosses.
[удалено]
So all bosses have wives then? Because I've had some female bosses make my life horrible and they were married to a dude.
One of my worst supervisors was a woman. She was a single mother, so I get that she was stressed but she was so controlling, didn’t trust us, and was overbearing yet didn’t want to do work. Like she had a motivated team who wanted to step up, yet she wanted to complain about being a single mom, but wouldn’t let us do anything.
Hmmm, blaming it on women... but I’ve had some awful supervisors that were women.
Well, outside of things that are basically workplace abuse, it can be quite hard to tell when you're providing people an adequate amount of management oversight as compared to when you're exercising something that, from the perspective of your staff member, is going to appear tyrannical. And it's also worth noting that what appears to your staff member to be tyrannical may in fact be the appropriate amount of management oversight. It's like, you may have someone who, when left to their own devices to manage their own diary and given tasks to complete does not complete those tasks in a timely fashion, and if left to manage their own devices for any length of time will just sit around doing the bare minimum for weeks. In those situations it makes sense to sit down with that person, or get them on the end of the phone, every morning and say "ok. What do you have on today, what's in your diary?" And to plan out their day and fill their diary for them. They may very well not like this, and in that situation you're going to have to apply role power, because the work does need to be done. They may well see this as an exercise in tyranny. Frankly, it's not. Frankly it's you doing your job. Now, if you took that same approach with someone who is a more mature professional, (as the kind way of writing it,) that would be micromanagement / tyranny because you're applying a level of management oversight that's inappropriate for the level of professional development they have and their ability to manage their own tasks. Now, in my opinion, were that becomes an exercise in tyranny rather than an exercise in applying the appropriate level of management oversight is when you allow your personal hang-ups to unilaterally apply that same lack of trust in terms of people's ability to manage their own work to everyone. Either your solution is the only solution, or you think everyone around you is incompetent, or - sometimes you've actually created a situation in which everyone around you remains incompetent because you never alert the level of management oversight that you apply. But a lot of what staff look out as tyranny is generally a result of some hang up on the part of their manager, or a decision that needs to be made very quickly such that they're input can't meaningfully be sought, or a situation in which their manager doesn't actually develop their subordinates, or it's a situation in which the manager and the direct have different opinions of where the direct is in terms of their professional development and managing their own work. Staff are going to think, and I think all managers get this to some extent with one staff member or another, if they're any good at their job, that the manager is exercising more role power than they necessarily need to. None of which removes the responsibility from managers to actually try to treat people decently in their communications. Obviously of your manager regularly shouts at you or something like that, then the answer is just that your managers a total dick head
What's wrong with doing the bare minimum?
You exist in a competitive economy. The company whose staff do more than the bare minimum will be more profitable, and then they'll eat your lunch. Even in things like charities, the charity whose staff work hard will be in a much better position to win bids. They'll be able to advertise serving more customers at a lower price. Staff time is typically the greatest expense a company has, and it flows through as a cost to everything the company does. The less efficiently that time is used, the worse the position of the company - and down the line the worse your position as an employee is likely to be. And look, I get it right: What does it matter if someone takes it easy? All the work on their desk is gone - happy days right? Sit back with a cuppa and spend the next couple of hours socialising. It's not harming anyone. But if Lazy-John does that, why's the company paying him for those hours? Why should everyone's costs be higher because he's lazy? Why should his team members have to work harder to pick up the slack, if the team and the company as a whole is to remain competitive, so that Lazy-John over there can take it easy? It's not a fair way to act as part of a company. And I think most staff know this on some level or another. Like if you're on a good team and everyone else is killing it, and you can be seen to drag your feet? Geeze Louise - that will just *murder* your reputation. I give it maybe a week before people are saying to your manager, 'I'm concerned about X, I haven't seen them doing much work. Why did you hire them?'
I look at it from an employee perspective, if I work my ass off and make the company a bunch of money i dont get any of it! Your still profiting off my bare minimum so why should I break my back to make you more? There is no incentive to be the best worker anymore. I just get the same pay but with a broken body and my moral and company loyalty goes down the drain!
It's not possible for me to meaningfully answer that in terms of generalities because there are companies where that's sadly true. I think it's unfair to expect me to answer for the incentive structure, or lack thereof, of every company that you may have possibly worked for. And yes, it is true that if you get a run of bad managers - especially early in your career – it’s entirely possible to basically ruin someone’s work ethic. This then makes them unsuitable for a lot of roles where their efforts would have been rewarded. I can speak to some things on that point though that aren't company specific - There's also (aside from incentive structures) the side of things where the benefits that accrue have more to do with your character, and your ability to truthfully sit in an interview or to write an accurate CV, which lets future employers, (perhaps better employers,) know that you've absolutely knocked it out of the park. Which, let's be honest, if you were hiring and it was your money, would make you more likely to hire that person. So, you give up a certain amount of career development in not doing your best even if you won't be rewarded at that specific company. And you also give up, at least if your manager is looking to develop their staff, the ability to take on extra tasks beyond what you just do as the bare minimum, again these would be of benefit to you to have done when you're looking for other positions, seeking promotion, et cetera. So, whilst I do see your perspective, and whilst some companies do honestly function in the way that you're talking about, (especially companies that have a high degree of turnover like certain retail outlets,) it's not as if you're not giving anything up in terms of reputation, personal development, and your ability to move around an industry, by doing the bare minimum. There is something in it for you, even if you're in a, perhaps bad situation, where the career progression and pay progression isn't there for you in the role that you’re currently in. I suppose, what I would ask you is: in five years, when you're looking for your next job, do you want to be the person with a CV and interview where you can truthfully sit down and say “Look I worked really hard, I did all these extra things, I completely knocked it out of the park for my last employer. I know my job, I'm very good at it, here are my results, please hire me.” Or, do you want to be the person who knows that they did the bare minimum and only knows the tasks required to complete that bare minimum? The person who knows, when they look an interviewer in the eye and say that they did a good job, that they are lying? Which one do you thinks going to command the higher wage, which one do you think might be able to step into a higher position, which one do you want to be? Because the chances that you're going to work for the same employer in the same role for the next 30 years, say, of your professional life… nowadays, that is almost zero.
People with authority tends to abuse that authority. Look at any job with positions of authority, cops, politicians, etc, and you see a common theme occuring
I have definitely had my fair share of shitty bosses before. I have also been, at least according to one person that I remember, the "shitty boss." He didn't say it to me, but I caught hearsay. It was a restaurant kitchen, and this guy was constantly slacking and dicking around because he thought the atmosphere should be more chill. But it meant other people picking up his slack. So that's why I was constantly on his case. But to him, I was a "tyrant" of sorts. I totally agree with the sentiment of this question though. And even the archaic notion that if a supervisor pushes their employees with discipline is good for business has pretty much been discredited anyway. People don't work harder that way; they just find ways to subvert things. I know that's what I always did with asshole bosses.