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Friday 27 May 2011

Why managers dont know management



It’s an early morning on Saturday and I was reading my dad’s note on his plan to retire soon. Recently there was a note which I had written about employee employer relationship which was a highly debatable topic. So much was the interest in the topic that most of friend atleast hit the thumbs up button. And today when I sit back and do a little introspection, I stumble upon a little fact which is a big hindrance to my aims or growth. 

It all started a few days back when I being the greatest idiot as in the senior most duffer in my team was left behind in the race to be the point of contact by my team lead. Instead my team mate who was 6 months new but apparently 3 years older to me was made the deputy in my leads absence. At that moment I was probably letting more steam from my head than a steam engines boiler. I was pretty disappointed at that and to add fuel to the fire, this teammate of mine was throwing his weight around being bossy and comes and asks ' so what are you doing shyam’. Did I deserve this? Certainly not and then he talks about me being non compliant and I was left fuming. But soon I kind of settled in to my normal self. As I was doing my usual job, I noticed this teammate of mine running helter skelter trying to solve issues. I pitied him because he really had no clue whats going on. He was learning it the hard way. But that’s where my head began thinking. WHY was he made the deputy and not me? The answer is somewhat very clear and known to me. 

It’s in the style of work; I am a humorous, fun going that enjoys work and doing it with passion. It’s this attitude of mine which is now a big hindrance to my growth. Why?? Because we Indians are so used to having authoritativeness.

From what I can assume and is purely my opinion ,I often get a feedback stating shyam grow up be mature.I would say it’s not about growing up or being mature , hell with you guys if you talk about maturity for a kid would not write notes like these.
It’s how we Indian managers are groomed, we are so used to having the ' I am the boss attitude ' and get things done in a 'Do it ' manner and I just hate that. Having an authoritative attitude and being bossy is not the only way of management. I am sorry but half the technical guys who have done engineering will never understand this and they are just work horses who will go in one direction because their eyes are tied. When I leant management from my Graduate studies there are different styles such as the Democratic style, Lassie Faire style and the bossy style. 

I prefer the Lassie Faire style for a reason that mostly my peers are often older to me and I cannot be a boss to them to lead teams. My role would be to get the best out of them and respect them for what they are capable of. And nowhere is it written that managers have to be bossy and you know order things and act like one. They call me immature for the simple reason that I don’t follow their style of management of being the boss. 

I just can’t help thinking ... The aim in organisations is to get the job done and most managers job is that whether by himself or from the team. So it really shouldn’t matter what style of management is used because what really should matter is whether the job has been done. But now time and again I have noticed , we Indians leads and managers only consider work as done only when it has been ordered , bullied thrown to team members. And it is this style which has been followed on across managers to teams who then become managers so yes eventually even the bloody team member becomes the horse. 

And when I do it the other way, and still get things done, it’s termed not mature to be managerial. I may laugh play around, have fun but at the end of day I can get my things done. And it need not necessarily be achieved through being authoritative.

But this style is so inate in us, the other day my senior manager comes to me and says be like him. I hate being like him because I am not him. I am shyam for god sake!!!

One more of my thoughts which is highly debatable. 

So does free style of management still have a value in Indian manager’s books and organisations? Looking forward to hearing from you guys and oh yes my dad too.