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Odimbite Odimbite: Work Management Styles that Inspire Staff Loyalty

In my previous article on work management styles that make or mar businesses, we examined some curious work management styles used by business leaders. We identified that dominant use of management by threat, management by deceit and management by reports can be seen as negative in the workplace.

There’s a flipside to the coin though. There are work management styles that can increase, improve and stabilize staff loyalty to a business leader and the entire business.

I had the unique privilege of working with twenty six bosses within my first fifteen years of working in local and international companies, approximating two new bosses every year. I did observe significant differences in the ways each boss managed my performance and how they preferred I relate with them. These are some of the styles I would be sharing. In my personal opinion, only two bosses stood out as excellent superiors. Boss management style makes a difference as to whether the boss rates the subordinate an excellent performer or not. This can impact greatly on staff retention and teamwork in the workplace. Even if a business spends millions of dollars in team building programs and these fundamentals aren't working well, results from such team building initiatives will only show marginal improvements.

There are some work management styles that can increase and improve loyalty of staff and clients. This discuss isn't exhaustive but some are considered below.

Management by Controlled Oversight (MBCO)

Often, complexity of operations will necessitate a boss having direct reports spread across several locations, districts, regions or national boundaries. It becomes increasingly difficult to coordinate the performance of each subordinate. This is where management by controlled oversight (MBCO) is a handy tool. The boss relies on some form of programmed feedback from subordinates to ascertain their availability at their work stations. The boss can also set up other persons or control systems to alert him personally of possible staff absence from duty post or truancy especially where there is proven cases of such staff conduct. Some locations may be operationally heavy with small management presence and if the employees aren’t closely monitored, the organization may be losing money, man hours and offer poor customer service. 

Using time logs alone won’t control absence or truancy. For instance, Ambrose, a midlevel manager in a fast moving goods consumer company, introduced time log for subordinates in multiple locations to check punctuality and actual man-hours of work. The employees devised a method of logging for themselves by whoever comes earlier. He introduced other checks through asking the security personnel in those locations to keep log of staff exits and entry into the work place and this too didn’t work as the employees colluded with security personnel after a while to joggle contents of the movement log. Random telephone calls to the employees at different hours didn’t solve the problem as employees would answer the phone and state they were in the office even though they were out.

This is particularly a challenge with lower level staff than for higher management staff that have a better appreciation of total organizational perspective. One boss kept getting a report at 8.00am each Monday morning from one of his direct reports in a remote location. At first the boss was enthused. One day, he decided to test whether this is a computer scheduled report or if the subordinate was at work before 8am each Monday to complete and send the report. He decided to send a mail to the subordinate by 7.30am one of the Monday mornings requesting a small amendment in the report and also tracked the mail. The amendment could be done in five minutes. The subordinate’s report arrived 08.00am prompt in the old format. He sent a mail immediately asking a question on one of the items in the report. The subordinate didn’t reply until 9.05am after reading his boss’ mail on format modification around 8:40am. The boss now convinced that the subordinate wasn’t in the office until around 08.30am, called him on phone to investigate and of course his suspicion was right. The subordinate didn’t arrive at his work desk on Mondays until 08.30am instead of 8.00am. Bosses have to devise ways to effectively manage by controlled oversight. They have to think on their feet all the time.

Management by Exception (MBE)

Managing by exception (MBE) is a style that busy executives find useful. They want to see the exceptions as top line summaries. Once a report or review is to be made or received, they skim the report for outliers. What is above or below the expected and why? The essence is to be on top of key issues and ensure they get solved.

If performance far exceeds what is expected, they want to understand the rationale behind it. What are the individuals or the unit doing to create the above target output? This helps the organization share best practice quickly and enhances performance management. If the output is far below the expected, there is need to understand what is happening- the reason for the shortfall and what is being done to address it. That may mean taking fast and drastic decision to change a process or procedure.

Most employees who work with bosses who manage by exception are often on their toes and analytical in their approach to business. They critique all information received to understand what those data are saying and why. They don’t just clap for top performance. They want to know why that is top performance before they clap, and they clap loudly when doing so! The key task is to make employees balanced and objective in their reporting.

Management by Friendship (MBF)

Some bosses are natural people persons and they easily make friends. Once there is a feel that a subordinate doesn’t like them they feel uncomfortable and promptly make things right again. As long as the friendship bridge is built and maintained, work is peaceful but expected results may delay, drop or go unachieved. The subordinates could play safe and skip on deadlines that embarrass the boss with other internal stakeholders.

Delay in meeting timeline can be explained away to the boss who will understand with them but then the boss takes the heat from higher management. Such bosses may be very slow at reprimanding poor performance outcomes. They are sharp at detecting a subordinate who isn’t friendly like them and in the long run, distance themselves from such subordinates. Such bosses also feel their subordinates should warm up to them and so if anything is happening to the subordinate that they don’t know about, they may be easily hurt.

The key task is making subordinates understand that they owe the boss and the organization outstanding performance even though their boss is a very good friend. The staff feel safe, relaxed, may lose sense of urgency, can make excuses a lot, are warm but may take the friendship of the boss for granted in delivering on schedule. Such a boss has to learn to give earlier deadlines. If he requires performance of any task say by end of the day, he should move the deadline earlier to say 12:00noon, coupled with hourly follow ups so the task is done on or before close of business to avoid being chewed up by top management most of the time.

One Cap Fits All?

These work management styles aren't a one cap fits all arrangement. Different situations would need different styles. Leaders must adapt so as to make work and relationships interesting for all. The business leader is one of the major reasons staff leave organizations and work management styles play a major role in this regard. Most staff won't survive long where the leader uses management by threat as a dominant style.

Looking back through the years, my two most excellent bosses used a work management style quite different from these discussed so far. The concluding piece will extensively discuss this impressive work management style.

Understanding a boss’ predominant working style can be a bonus to the staff. It will help in proper superior-subordinate relationship that aids good organizational performance.

Odimbite Odimbite is Co-Founder, Metrodelight Foods Limited, Nigeria

 

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