Positive and Negative Management Traits

I believe that there is more than one trait that characterizes a successful manager. The trait that I hold in particularly high esteem is being in touch with concerns of the staff that the manager supervises. As mentioned in chapter 1 of "The Knowing-Doing Gap", managers would greatly improve their relationship with staff and the accuracy of their assessment of the workplace productivity and dynamic, if there is a continual loop of communication, feedback and adjustment that happens between the levels of workplace hierarchy. David Sun, the manager of the successful company Kingston Technology, says that as a manager he follows the following simple motto:"Just do what they tell you they want." If the staff perceives that that management is receptive to their feedback, a certain level of trust is developed. The challenge of encouraging productivity and staff dedication is then to deliver what the staff needs to achieve excellent work performance.

Another important factor in being a good manager is recognizing that the vast majority of people learn effective work practices on the job, thus the success of co-op education programs, apprenticeships and internships that offer job-related skills. For a manager, it is important to fully understand what his/her staff does and how they do it. I think it is very important to have the technical expertise to, if not do, then certainly to understand the nature of employees' daily tasks and to clearly see these concrete tasks in a larger context of organizational mission and its goals. Most of the time heads of labs in conservation laboratories are conservators who have had several or many years of work experience in the type of institution, where they are fulfilling the management role. In this way, they have the technical competencies to recognize issues and dilemmas that the staff might be experiencing in their daily work. In addition to technical expertise, it is crucial for a manager and his/her staff to participate in activities that carry embedded tacit knowledge, such as meetings, mentoring, training, informal interactions at break time and outside of work, interaction with patrons and professionals from other departments.

The third quality of a good manager that I want to talk about is the continued effort to see situations and staff members with fresh eyes. All people are susceptible to forming instant stereotypes about co-workers, based on clothes, accents, hobbies, the kind of movies and books they like, what their husband is like, or whatever seems to capture our immediate attention. This is quite normal, but when you are responsible for evaluating and promoting or demoting staff members, it becomes more important to make efforts to neutralize these stereotype-driven assessments.

Normally managers have a lot of previous experience, which is great in some ways and less great in other ways. As mentioned in "The Mind and Heart of a Negotiator", things like "set effect" and "negative transfer" can undermine a manager's performance. This happens when a solution that had worked previously in a separate environment is applied to a different situation without due consideration of the specifics of the new context. The flip side of the coin is what the book calls "inert knowledge", which refers to a manager's inability to transfer their knowledge of problem solving from one context to another. So, it seems that a great manager has to be able to think holistically, and yet not to succumb to generic cookie-cutter solutions. The manager has to possess constant awareness of the major philosophies and dilemmas of their field in general, and then be able to apply their knowledge and insight in a specific, concrete way that fits their "on the ground" workplace situation.

As a manager, I try to see what the needs of my subordinates are and I try to offer them what they need in the most interesting way. However, in return I expect certain things like timeliness, a strong work ethic, general friendliness and the willingness to communicate. I think that trying to see the workplace through the eyes of the person you are supervising is a very valuable exercise. I find that I need to demonstrate that I am secure and confident in the tasks that I am asking my subordinates to do, which in turn gives them confidence. I am always available for questions and I go over and check on them, as how they are doing, engage with them about the process. I definitely try to impart that the work is important and that I care about the work, that we are not just here to slack off and cut corners, but I also try to be warm and friendly and try to find out more about how the person is outside of work. This usually gives me insight into how their work performance is effected by what is going on in other parts of their lives. I try to make my own work and work-related struggles visible to them because it makes me more relatable, characterizes me as an open person and shows that I trust them to see me when everything is not perfect.