Managers

[nina97]

Thinking about the great and not so great managers you had... What made the great ones great.... And the not so great ones great...

For me it was the ones that gave me freedom to do what I needed, were themselves and were understanding....

Now that i manage teams I'm not sure if thats enough... From me.... Tell me your experiences.....

He was great at getting to know everyone, on a more friendly basis and therefore being able to understand our personal and home lives. This made him great when asking for time off or to swap a shift due to not having childcare last minute/feeling unwell/even having a party we really wanted to go to.

Absolutely fucking awful at managing his team though. I worked in a small team, think 10-15 people. Everyone used to sleep with each other even if they had partners at home. Was disgusting and so so weird. Some used to get caught at it in the staff room or staff toilets. He would do nothing about it.
And he was clearly closer to some members of staff than others, I had a complaint about another staff member and asked him how I should handle it, he said he would deal with it and went straight up to them to tell them that I had a complaint about them. That was his way of dealing with it. No management-team confidentiality and it caused further tension between us.

Current manager is blocking progress in the company. Won't even let people apply for jobs and is quite open about it. She really seems to think it's ok to tell people "no one from this team will get the xyz role"...This annoys me a lot as I might WANT to do xyz job but she doesn't even care to ask..She has no concept that what people in her team WANT to do matters.
I'm going to leave because of that.

Bad managers, ones I've been afraid to tell them I made a mistake as they would explode. Nobody wants to be terrified of their boss. Also micromanaging.

Good managers, open and helpful, let you get on with things but are there when you need to ask something. Encourage you to develop your skills and become better.

Thanks for your responses... Really interesting.. Its emotional intelligence thats important then, but being able to have boundaries and following through then.

Get the micromanaging thing.... That's hard to deal with.

My vision is to have people be independent, come for advice and support. Have the relationship that difficult conversations can happen and be constructive but that people also have the encouragement space and time to grow and develop.

I do wonder if I sometimes take it too seriously.

@greevia... Ohh that sounds so hard. I was in a similar situation last year and i just left.. Encouraged by a thread here and as i jumped the proverbial net appeared and i got a good role that is a good fit for me... And no more toxic boss.... Yours sounds like someone with very low skills and confidence.... A dictator not a leader or manager.