Too many bosses means too little time
Workers complain that reporting to more than one leader creates conflicting directives
A majority of workers say they are saddled with reporting to multiple bosses and that fickle managers often waste their time with unfocused goals and conflicting directives, research shows.
More than two-thirds of employees around the world say they have to consult with more than one boss to get their jobs done, and nearly two-thirds of those surveyed say they waste significant amounts of time waiting for guidance from senior leaders, according to a 2017 study by research firm Gartner Inc. Even more people surveyed—71%—told Gartner they have wasted copious time on projects or assignments that their managers later deemed as unimportant.
A few years ago at a prior job, Girish Rishi had a boss who got distracted by every minor crisis or triumph, leading to “whiplash” for his subordinates, says Mr. Rishi, now chief executive of JDA Software, of Scottsdale, Ariz.
“If there was news about a competitor, it would take up half your day,” he says. “If there was a customer win, the celebration would go on too long. Focusing on structure and priorities was missing.”
Mr. Rishi says he tried his best to insulate his team from the chaos. He also developed his own management system based around efficiency. At JDA, a maker of supply-chain software, he requires meetings to be intensely focused and only eight or 30 minutes long, and he asks participants to submit materials 48 hours in advance.
While that isn’t always possible, Mr. Rishi says, he finds that for roughly 70% of all meetings, “people come prepared, they’ve summarized their thoughts and they’ve given us adequate information.”
Bosses now manage, on average, nine direct reports, up from five in 2008, according to Gartner, which can spread leaders so thin that they don’t have a close grasp of what their employees are doing. Only about 35% of employees surveyed say their manager understands their day-to-day work.
“Managers are less likely to provide good feedback and coaching when they don’t understand what that employee’s workflow is,” says Brian Kropp, human-resources-practice leader at Gartner.
Some managers say they are trying to be better bosses. Meghan Knoll, a general manager at Bark, which operates a subscription service of monthly dog treats and dog toys, participates in a regular management-coaching group with some of her peers. Recently, Ms. Knoll brought in a long list of difficult topics she wanted to discuss with a direct report and asked for guidance.
As the group asked her pointed questions about the feedback she planned to give her report, she began crossing items off the list. Some, for example, were just style differences between her and the employee.
“There was really only one thing I needed to talk to the person about,” Ms. Knoll says. “Coming in with a big list would have ultimately been a distraction.”
Roxanne Allen, a former director of communications with American Express who runs her own strategy business in Minneapolis, said in today’s “do more” office environment, managers’ priorities are ever changing and their employees are expected to remain open to fast-changing roles and business needs. “To be perceived as anything else is a career killer,” she said.
That’s the root of a lot of frustration. “Managers should set clear goals, learn to clearly communicate their priorities, and know the work their employees are performing so that mindless ’never minds’ are unnecessary and overloading never happens,” Ms. Allen says. “Alignment starts at the top.”
As greater workplace collaboration has swept across offices, many people report they feel burdened by all the shared projects—and the myriad meetings, conference calls and emails they require.
People with deeply rooted identities as high-performing workers are especially susceptible to collaborative overload, says Rob Cross, a professor of leadership at Babson College. But he sees glimmers of hope in the cubicle-scape.
In 160 interviews with men and women across 20 organizations—including software firms, manufacturers and government contractors—many workers told him that they had successfully said “enough,” putting up boundaries to reclaim control of their days. “They did so with great trepidation, only to discover that the negative backlash they’d feared was nowhere to be found,” he says.
One man told Babson researchers that when he started saying “no” more, the reaction shocked him. “People adapted around me immediately. To be honest, it made me wonder why I didn’t do this a year ago,” he said. “It has made a big impact on my happiness.”
Can you really set boundaries with your boss? Dr. Cross says yes, but it can’t be done in the heat of the moment. “You have to do it proactively,” he says, adding that people who build a diverse network of colleagues across an organization tend to possess the confidence to draw the line, while siloed workers frequently feel helpless to stand up for themselves.
“When a person’s whole identification gets built around one area, you get people who are less likely to believe that they can say no,” he says.