Performer Vs. People Manager
My First Bad Manager
The first time I experienced a “bad” manager was at my second HR job. I never knew I had an incredible first boss until I met my second one years later.
On my first day, my new manager brought me into her office and said, “I know what you think you were hired for, but things have changed and I need you to step up.”
It was a shock to the system coming from where I had been previously to say the least. Like hi - I’m Kayla, I have a couple dogs and my favorite part of HR is employee relations. Nice to meet you!
For the next 6 months, this manager would either micromanage me, or be completely absent for days. She would demand long hours, criticize my lunch breaks, and sat in her office (behind my desk) talking to her friends and family on the phone.
To top it all off, I had an HR Associate counterpart who’s only job was payroll. She would complete payroll in one day, then walk to the neighboring building and hang out with her husband for the rest of the week.
Towards the end of my employment, I realized my manager was adding more and more work everyday. I led an entire HRIS implementation without previous experience, handled all recruiting, and audited payroll. I was working insane hours and was so stressed about my relationship with my manager that I was barely even eating.
Then one day, at 6am when I got into the office, she surprised me by being at her desk. She came to mine and asked me to meet her in her office. When I sat down, she promptly laid me off. She stated the entire non-profit was closing and I was in the first rounds of layoffs because I wasn’t as useful as other people.
I was stunned. It was my first time ever being “let go” and the way the conversation went was so heartless. I packed up my desk and left by 6:05.
It took my a while to realize that this manager, and the countless underperforming others I’ve encountered in my career, aren’t necessarily “bad” people. Most ineffective managers are simply not equipped for the job.
Performer Vs. People Manager
It goes without saying that businesses specialize in promoting high performers. This isn’t unique to one specific sector or department (although tech sales is by far the most egregious offender). Corporations around the world find high performing individual contributors and want to reward them for that performance. So they promote these stellar performers to people managers and everything goes to shit.
Department leaders come to HR and ask how this person could be failing. They’ll say things like, “Maybe they can’t handle the pressure,” or “Maybe there’s something going on at home.” And sternly, but kindly, HR has to educate another business leader on why a High Performer does not equal a People Manager.
The skill set to be a people manager is oftentimes opposite of what is needed to be a high performer. We throw people into the deep end with no swim lessons and act surprised when they drown. Even if an employee has had previous people managing experience, who’s to say they were effective and well trained?
Performer
A performer is a highly effective individual contributor. They are subject matter experts in their field, get creative with their solutions, and add significant progress to the overall company.
Most high performers fall into two categories: Wildly extroverted or wildly introverted.
We often find the wildly extroverted employee excelling in sales, marketing, customer service and relationship building roles.
Conversely, we often times find the wildly introverted employee excelling in engineering, information technology, payroll and compliance.
These high performers have qualities that make them successful, and also difficult to work with. I say to Sales leaders all the time, “What makes a great sales person is what makes them difficult to work with. They never take no for an answer, find ways around the process, and always have to convince you of their pitch.”
I’ve also been known to say that payroll people are almost always freaking mean. They don’t want to talk to you, they want to be accurate and on time and if you so much as throw in a $2 change while they’re processing payroll you better come to them with a human sacrifice and cookies.
The tough qualities in high performers are easy to overlook because those qualities lend to these employees’ successes. It’s when we promote them to people management without training that we see these qualities become explosive.
People Manager
What makes up a “good” people manager is highly debated. It’s harder to quantify on a performance review how successful a manager is than it is to quantify how successful an individual contributor is.
Generally speaking, highly effective managers are strong listeners, problem solvers, and communicators. They manage regular interruptions easily, can multi-task, and are able to see the big picture.
Additionally, we know that great managers, fantastic managers even, are managers that build trust. They lead with empathy and vulnerability, they constantly think about how new projects and processes impact their teams, and they build lasting relationships with their direct reports.
Out of this world people managers allow others to make mistakes; they create an environment where creativity is not stifled by fear of failure. They can roll up their sleeves and also back off. They explain the why behind the what, and they know how to apologize as quickly as they forgive.
Here’s the kicker: while I believe some people are naturally better at being a people manager, I am wholly convinced that people managers are built, not born.
Built, Not Born
I want you to think back to the best boss you’ve ever had. The boss that you’d work for again in a heartbeat if given the chance. And then I want you to think about how many years of experience that person had as a people manager.
Brilliant people managers become subject matter experts in leadership. They spend years becoming experts in their field, and then they spend more years becoming experts in the humans within that field.
Effective people managers take courses, attend webinars, go through leadership training, and have formal mentorship. They are built year by year, experience by experience, training by training, as they navigate the murky waters of managing a team.
We spend billions of dollars training people how to do their jobs, yet we spend about $10 on a slide deck we send to a new manager the moment they’re promoted teaching them about the compliance of management and not the heart of leadership.
So they fail.
These employees go from being highly successful as an individual contributor to being a colossal asshole that everyone hates. Teams lose trust, productivity, and eventually one if not all end up at my desk seeking help.
Building Managers
Building people managers is not an all out boot camp designed to teach humans how to be compassionate; it’s giving people the right resources and seeing if this is truly the right path for them. Here’s how I build managers:
Time: I build programs that require substantial time from participants. I don’t try to hide that from business leaders and I refuse to make the manager training experience shorter. I learn what each business leader needs to be convinced of an investment, and then I spend days creating a pitch that meets every leader where they’re at. Not only do people need to spend real time building new skill sets, they need to see that the organization invests so much in our people that we believe this is time well spent.
Programs: A slide deck about ADA and FMLA are not going to build people managers. A 2-4 hour class on Crucial Conversations is not going to build people managers. Content alone will not build people managers. We must create programs that allow for dialogue, role playing, break out sessions, and homework. Programs need milestones, tests, and more than just one instructor. They need to be organized, but fluid, relevant to today’s employee issues, and challenging in many facets. It is crucial that HR and L&D dedicate their own time to building out multiple programs (that’s right, there should be different programs for each stage of management) in order to have strong people managers come out on the other side.
Mentorship: This is a non-negotiable. People managers are most effective when they’re held accountable and encouraged by more than just HR. Your mentorship program should be structured and helpful, giving the mentor and mentee guidelines on how to establish the relationship and keep it going. Be purposeful in the pairs you select; seek advice from business leaders and your own leadership about who to pair together. Allow for a small budget so the pairs can get lunch or coffee together. It takes a village, fam.
Compensation: Not everyone is meant to be a people manager. Let me say that again, not everyone is meant to be a people manager. As you vet employees for their desire to manage and their ability to be built into a people manager, you’re going to find out quickly that some just do not want to or cannot manage. And that is OKAY. Your job is to ensure there is a compensation structure in place that adequately rewards individual contributors that are kicking ass but don’t want to be people managers. If you don’t invest in this compensation track, people in your organization will eventually leave because they’re stuck with managers that never wanted to manage in the first place.
HR: The absolute worst department for building people managers is HR. We do this insane thing where we say “well you’re in HR, you like people, it’ll work out.” Professionally… be fucking forreal. There’s an entire generation of HR professionals that got into HR because it was the administrative department. Then there’s HR people that became recruiters at a start up and were thrown into generalized HR and now they’re managers. The list of unequipped HR managers goes on and on. The call is coming from within the house, fam. Every member of HR needs to go through the same training and mentorship as people managers in other departments. Make the time, adjust the workload, be an example
The ripple effect people managers have in the history or an organization cannot be overstated. It’s time to see those impacts, prepare people, and change outcomes.
Check out my ER Toolkits page to find resources for HR and managers, or book time with me to help you create the best programs possible!