19 Comments

A manager’s job is to support their team, not the other way around. Hard agree with you on that. Speaking as a middle manager (here for my roasting!) I see middle management as primarily being a wellbeing maintenance role – part-secretary, part-therapist, part-mentor. I enjoy that role and I’m good at it. If you don’t like managing people, don’t be a manager! Or read some fucking Carl Rogers at least.

I disagree with you on the timing and the numbers. An organisation that looks after wellbeing and work-life balance doesn’t need a high number of middle managers – I agree. But most organisations aren’t like that yet. Most organisations are still toxic. Part of my role as a middle manager is to get shat on by the unempathic, narcissistic idiots in the top level of management – and make sure none of that shit trickles down to my team. I do that by being patient, empathetic, efficient, by cheerleading for my team, by challenging non-transparent management behaviour, and by not accepting any toxic bullshit without a fight.

When an organisation gets less toxic, absolutely, it’s time for middle managers to go. Until then, there are plenty of middle managers doing exactly what you think they should be doing - protecting their teams. They are often the last line of defence from a top-level management who treat workers like toy soldiers.

Re: the numbers — managing the well-being and development of 20 people is untenable. That’s too many people to do that job well. (If you want to have a weekly wellbeing 121 with every team member - which you should - that’s more than half the week gone.) With that number of people, you can do the job adequately - but not *well*.

I agree with you about bad middle managers. I’ve seen too many middle managers promoted who have no idea how to manage a person’s well-being – they want to use management as a stepping stone or audition for something better. They want to take their team’s good work and claim it as their own, but let their team take the blame when something fucks up. That shit enrages me. But – until most workplaces become utopias, or semi-utopias, or 10% utopias, which I don’t see happening anytime soon, protective and empathetic middle managers have a use

But! Yes – the shitty ones can fuck off.

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I'm a manager. And you might be onto something.

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I totally agree that we need to be a lot more clear about what specifically managers do in a day. As Ed states, too often the job description just stops at "managing my team" and no one ever seems to drill down to the next level of what that means. In the very large organizations where I have worked, this allows "managers" to basically get away with just trying to be famous enough to get promoted to the next level - ie nothing useful or productive to the overall organization.

Things that I would include in the job description - mentoring junior staff is a big one. They are likely to have questions about how to do certain things in the organization, or how to deal with unfamiliar or "sticky" situations, and as a manager I need to provide feedback on how to move forward or (in many cases) roll up my sleeves and work alongside that person. The other big job is being the "floater" who can pick up overflow work during periods where the workload is too high (unexpected work input, employee out, etc). Also if issues come up that don't really fall into someone's job description, then as a manager I need to get in there and solve it.

Regarding the high number of direct reports Ed proposes - I do think it needs to be adjusted based on the experience level of your staff. When your staff is all seasoned and experienced, I can take on a large number of directs since the coaching / overflow work aspect is a lot lower. In those cases I tend to be more of a peer to my directs than a boss - ie basically just doing regular individual contributor work and (where needed) attending meetings where a "department head" is needed. But when managing younger teams I can only do about 4-6 max, since due to their inexperience they are going to need a lot of help.

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Agreeing with basically all of this - having been in two management roles in highly hierarchical, institutionalized, unionized organizations - now back in a 'working level' or whatever the heck we can call non-managerial roles (I guess if we line up with your post, actual work! hah).

One thing that seems strange to me though is that 15-20 blanket statement re employee ratios. You'd imagine it varies with industry, schedules (how urgent and important the team's tasks are). Because I guess we want managers to:

a) be able to motivate and help folks. managers as helpers/filters per your post. A hard agree on how I tried to do that job...

b) but also be able to participate in the work, to a degree. Not micromanaging but - because they understand the file, per your post - contribute and improve.

I think in many fields, 15-20 direct reports would be a heavy load for that, especially as one travels up a large hierarchy.

But then again - I've worked in giant organizations so long, I must be weird!

Thanks for writing these. Your posts always get me (re)thinking.

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the 'point' of managers isn't to 'manage a team' specifically, it's to be responsible for an outcome, so that important tasks have directly responsible individuals which makes the whole process legible to others. accountability baby!

for example: presumably most chain stores operate with the same rules as their sibling stores, so why not just hire store assistants, give them a manual, and let them get on with it? because if out-of-scope events occur, it's nobody's actual job to step outside of their role and fix it; there is nobody being held responsible for the overall performance/safety/revenue of the overall store, just 'aisle 3' or 'checkout lane B'.

the role of the store manager isn't "manage the staff" it's "you must guarantee the store always opens/is stocked/is safe/makes money and you're the one that gets fired if it doesn't" of which team management maybe be a small or big part! it's a means to an end.

of course in some circumstances you can just cruise by as a manager (if you're responsible for outcome X and your team is safely on track to hit the target, you could just... chill!) but in practice this doesn't happen all that often, not least because outcomes and targets constantly change, unexpected events occur with your industry, company, for the customer, or within your team, not to mention you're just incentivised to overperform so today's "overperforming" becomes next month's "expected baseline".

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Sounds like you have NOT been a manager. If everyone employee did what they're supposed to do then MAYBE there would be no need for managers. However, plenty of individuals do not want the responsibilities of ACCOUNTABILITY and RESPONSIBILITIES of actions and outcomes. Competent staff, individuals following through on assigned duties, and a host of other attributes make or break management effectiveness. I've had my fill of bad managers at all levels, but organizational culture and those in decision-making have direct affects on workplace climate. How about directing some attention to capitalism as practiced and/or the role of EPS for publicly-traded companies and then I think you'll take a different approach.

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Is this meant to be specific to white collar professions? It doesn't ring true to my experience in the hospitality profession.

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