Advice: Management Styles 101
Managers and business owners, gather round. Not sure if you realised, but we all fall into some pretty set routines with our ways of working. Some of the tasks we do can’t be changed, and we’re literally wearing paths in our carpet. Other things we do are varied from day to day – never the same.
To quote some Monty Python, “we’re all individuals” – and yet, we’ve already been ‘classified’ as to the types of managers we are. Management theories list at least four basic styles of management, plus a compliment of industry-specific styles.
What’s important about the following list of management styles is not so much in identifying which style sounds the most like you, but in looking at the other styles, to see if there could be benefits to you, your staff, and your business.
Autocratic: “What I say, goes.”
The boss is the boss, and the workers are the workers. Sounds a little nasty, but in many cases, it’s the most direct style of managing a team when there’s a lot of simple tasks to be carried out, or when the industry in question doesn’t have any wiggle room for creativity – and the manager is the only link in the chain with the *need* for decision making.
Apart from feelings of inferiority (“help, help, I’m being repressed!”), this style can also lead to staff becoming dependent on the manager for their next task, which in turn necessitates more management to keep things running.
Paternalistic: “I’ll listen, but ultimately I’m the decision maker”
Just like with a parent-child relationship, the ‘grown-ups’ are in charge, but the ‘kids’ feel like they’re part of the process. And like any large family, different seniorities of staff will have different levels of feedback to give to the manager. The instant benefit over the Autocratic style is that the feedback loop (if taken seriously) boosts morale; whereas a disadvantage is the added layer of admin. There’s no free ride in any of these styles: either you, the manager, gets involved in the low-level work OR you get involved in administration OF the low-level work.
Democratic: “Let’s vote on it”
In a Democratic style, the manager allows staff to take part in decision-making: everything is agreed by the majority. This allows for the collective mind of you and your staff to find solutions to complex problems – but it can also turn simple solutions into complex answers. Remember, a camel is a horse designed by committee. The challenge is to steer the ship the best you can, and begin to realise when solutions are ‘good enough’ vs ‘perfect’. Perfection vs commercial success are two different concepts: sometimes they align, but other times, they need to be poles apart.
Laissez-faire: “Let them eat cake”
Allowing your staff to find their own solutions takes both a) guts, and b) the right environment. In some industries, it’s just not possible (hey, let’s let Jimmy find his own recipe for making molten steel). The prime benefits are in the release of creativity of your staff, and in the lack of admin for your, the manager; whereas the dangers are in the resulting unco-ordinated efforts, and the lack of strategic focus of the business.
And lastly: “just barely managing”
Using the definition of ‘manage’ as ‘just coping’, this final style of management is not as atypical as it sounds. There are many situations where we are suddenly plunged into new areas of business, new locations, or new technologies, where suddenly we’re faced with the sink or swim proposition.
Our reactions to new situations are the times when we’re both at our most vunerable AND when we’re the most needed. My suggestion is to use the word ‘manage’ in the same sense as the word ‘design’ was intended: as a word meaning ‘planning’ and ‘thought’ – doing the strategic thinking and the day-to-day co-ordination of activities, to ensure your business runs smoothly.
AB out