Is your manager a red flag?
THEY say that the biggest factor in an employee’s decision to stay or quit is based on their leader. Hence the saying that people do not quit their jobs, they quit their bosses. Of course, there are other factors why people leave, like a life event, new economic conditions, or a global incident. But when it comes down to factors within the control of the employee, it will most often be their manager. When you are new to the team, how would you know if your manager is a good one?
The most obvious red flag is a manager who cannot control their emotions. There are managers who get easily angered, insult others, or even blame everyone else but themselves. If your manager is any of these, you need to be careful how you deal with them unless you want to be a target of their vitriol. I remember being interviewed by the head of a company when an assistant came in and gave her some documents. I was stunned when she started berating her in front of me to the point where the assistant was about to cry. Needless to say, I did not push through with my application.
Another obvious red flag is where the manager is an authoritarian who overworks their team and has no empathy at all. They drive their team to the ground regardless of their personal concerns. Some manifest their authoritarianism by micromanaging and constantly hovering over the shoulders of their team members waiting for them to make a mistake.
In terms of work ethics, bad managers are also disorganized and lose control of what the team should do. They do not like talking to their team and avoid their team when there are pressing concerns. But they would make themselves available to people they like, or to events where they know they will be praised. They present their team’s work as their own and talk to others about themselves all the time. They go to the office late and leave early, while leaving their team to handle the difficult issues and challenges.
The ones above are obvious red flags and indicate how bad the manager can get. However, there are subtle red flags that you need to watch out for in your manager because these could reveal their kind of leadership. These indicators could be caused by lack of training or insufficient experience, but could easily be remedied by talking to them or putting in measures to help them. These are little things that need to be addressed before they become problematic. The most common subtle red flags are their communication skills.
One is not setting clear expectations in terms of deliverables and behavior. There are some things that are not covered by the job description or contract which managers expect from their team members. When a manager assumes you already know these things, point them out because they might also expect it from other team members. Managers are the culture builders of their team, and they need to communicate the kind of work environment they want for their group. When everything is assumed, it creates a barrier to creating a work environment conducive to innovation and critical thinking.
Another is the lack of foresight when it comes to delegating work. While positions have similar tasks and deliverables, people do not always fit into neat little boxes. Team members will operate on different competency levels and managers need to understand where their team members are good in and assign them to tasks where they would excel. When managers do not take this into consideration, team members get assigned to projects where they consistently fail, making it difficult for them to progress in their career development.
On the other hand, there are also managers who do all the work and deliberately do not assign anything to their team members. This prevents people from learning new skills which could lead to a dearth of qualified personnel who can replace them in the event that they part ways with the team. When a manager assigns tasks incompatible with a person’s skills, or when they hog all the work, this is an indication that the manager does not understand the work required or does not trust their team to deliver.
One of the significant red flags for managers is when they do not know how to say “no” to their direct supervisor. Part of the work of a people manager is understanding what their team is capable of, and what their team is supposed to be doing so that they have a firm grasp of their team’s scope and output. This will help them negotiate with management better. When a manager constantly says “yes” to their direct supervisor, they are opening their team to work that might not even be within their scope. People managers need to understand that they are their team’s first line of defense from extraneous pressures. When the manager does not protect their team, it is bound to implode.
Another red flag is the lack of feedback about their team’s work. While it is true that lack of feedback means work is being done correctly, it does not provide areas where their team can improve on. Managers still need to provide feedback in terms of what their team did well and what their team can improve. Otherwise, their team will do their work mechanically and might lose interest and start looking for challenges outside the team.
One red flag I am especially averse to is when a manager dwells on what went wrong rather than finding solutions and asking what could be done better should it happen again. Your role as a people manager is to push your team forward. How can you do so when you are stuck in the past?
Your manager will always be limited by their training, experience, and understanding of how people behave. The red flags above only indicate that they need to work on some areas of how they should manage people. Depending on how they relate with you, there are times when an honest and open discussion can help them get back on track. But if they continue to have no professional development, you may have to look for good leadership somewhere else.