In a world of tangibles, a managerial assessment “in actual” could be a difficult practice to carry out and quite often the results could be misleading.
The team under that manager performed exceptionally well for the quarter period — what we are seeing is an example of a manager who is really good at managing employees…
… So is the verdict.
But those tangibles don’t take into account the complete picture.
The Unchanged
There are many factors that can be placed in the equation of:
Good Manager = Highly Productive Team
And same conclusions can be drawn, when indeed the real possibility could well be that the manager has little to do with the team’s success.
Good Manager + Good Employees + Experienced Team + Established Clientele = Highly Productive Team
You see, if you keep adding on the elements, how the distance between the two—Good Manager and Highly Productive Team—keeps adding up and how the presence of supporting elements start making this relationship more blur?
In that case, how can one “fairly” establish if a manager is a good manager or a bad manager?
That is when you have to look beyond the tangibles and into the intangibles.
The Attitude of the Manager
The attitude of a good manager always has an aura of element “we” about it. In contrast, the attitude of bad managers reflects the “I”.
We must make sure this objective is accomplished.
I need to make sure my team accomplishes this objective—it doesn’t sound right from the go.
The Attitude of the Team
The attitude of a team can also reveal a lot about its manager. A good manager will always have a team that is eager and highly engaged when working. A bad manager will always have a team that will exhibit a miserable attitude towards work.
In fact, a study from Gallup supports the following.
The Approach of the Manager
Mark Graban, an internationally recognized speaker, sums up this point perfectly:
“Bad managers tell employees what to do, good managers explain why they need to do it”
To elaborate, the approach of a bad manager is to make sure a task gets completed but the approach of a good manager goes beyond that—explain to the employee why they have been picked up to do it and what’s the importance of the task. You will get the task completed.
