The Importance of Managers in Times of Change

As a manager of people, do you realize how much you impact the lives of your employees?

Before you answer, let's consider a simple and relate-able experience: your own.

Take just a moment and reflect on a time when you worked for someone who was difficult, someone who showed elements of what studies have called a “despotic manager” (defined as a manager who is unethical and authoritarian, uses an unethical code of conduct, has little regard for others’ interests and can be domineering, controlling, vengeful, and/or exploitative) (1).

Now, be completely honest with yourself and answer the following questions:

During those times, how was your performance at work?
More importantly, how were your interactions with your loved ones once you got home from work? Did you ever bring any of that toxicity or related stress home with you?

This is especially true now that for many of us the "workplace" is now our homes. Sometimes we like to think we can compartmentalize work and home, but I know I'm probably more guilty than most of bringing the stresses and negativity at work home. And I can absolutely attest to the decline in not only my work performance but also my interactions at home that came about as a result of working for a toxic manager.

Now consider the opposite of that scenario: how different was your life when you worked for a great manager, one who supported and trusted you? How was your performance? How were your interactions with your loved ones?

One of the worlds most influential business thinkers of the last 50 years (2), Clayton M. Christensen, pondered similar questions after studying leaders and how their employees engaged both at work and at home. His research led him to the following conclusion:

“Management is the most noble of professions if it’s practiced well. No other occupation offers as many ways to help others learn and grow, take responsibility and be recognized for achievement, and contribute to the success of a team.” (3)

As members of the ranks of these noble professionals, we have been entrusted with a grave responsibility. Not only are we responsible to drive and achieve results for our organizations through our teams, but we also have a disproportionate influence on the wellbeing of our employees and their families.

“Wellbeing” is a hot topic these days with articles coming out almost daily purporting to tell us how to live our “best lives.”(4) But often overlooked in this social media fad is the simple impact a manager can have on a person’s wellbeing. One recent study has looked into this, and unsurprisingly found that working for a “despotic manager” leads to emotional exhaustion which leads to adverse effects in the home and lower levels of life satisfaction. (1) Just to drive the point home, again consider question #2: how did working for a toxic manager affect your life outside of work?

This is not simply just a “make employees feel-good” proposition. Tangible business results follow those who take their noble responsibility seriously. A recent Gallup study concluded that managers account for 70% of the variance in employee engagement. (5) Gallup defines engaged employees as those who are involved in, enthusiastic about and committed to their work and workplace. (6). When compared with organizations with low engagement, organizations with high levels of employee engagement report:

22% higher productivity
up to 65% lower turnover
48% fewer safety incidents
41% fewer quality incidents (defects) (7)

The managers who drive higher levels of engagement (and thus higher overall business results as detailed above) do so by meeting what Gallup refers to as the “4 Needs of Followers”. These managers give their teams hope, stability, compassion and trust. Research has found that managers that consistently meet these 4 needs become someone their employees choose to willingly follow rather than someone they are forced to follow based on a title or hierarchy. (8) These managers become leaders in the very simplest and purest form of the word: others follow them. People want to work for these leaders because of the way they make the employees feel. Employees under these leaders are more engaged, produce better results, and leave at the end of the day better equipped to handle the challenges they face in their personal lives.

This is especially true in times of change. When the organization, the systems, the process, and/or the tools employees interact with daily change, a threat response is triggered in their brain and they immediately go on the defense. By meeting the 4 Needs of Followers for our teams, they will be better equipped to absorb the change and return to a productive state.

As a manager of others, one simple way I've found that has helped me as I strive to lead through change is to ask myself the question I posed at the beginning of this article: do I truly appreciate the effect I as a manager have on the lives of my employees? I also ask myself: how do my employees feel at the end of the day after working for me--not for the company, but for me? Then I try to take it a step further and think through the 2nd and 3rd order effects of my actions by asking question such as: what is the home life of my team like after they leave work having interacted with me that day?

To repeat the words of Clayton M. Christensen: “Management is the most noble of professions if it’s practiced well” (3). Ours is a beautiful yet grave responsibility. As managers, we alone have a disproportionate level of influence on the wellbeing of our employees’ lives. This is not to say that simply being a leader by meeting their 4 basic needs will guarantee employees live happy, problem-free lives. But it does mean they are more likely to be engaged and more productive at work and better equipped to build strong families and communities when they return home at night.

The Importance of Managers in Times of Change

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