I am criticized by my team, even though I thought I was a good manager
15 May 2009
Read by 1890 persons
I manage a department of about a hundred people in a company. I overheard employees making very harsh remarks about me. Yet I feel like I am a "good" manager. What should I do to improve this situation, which affects me a great deal?
We often talk about the importance of giving feedback, showing appreciation to one's subordinates...but we fail to mention that managers also have their own needs. However, the higher one climbs in the organization, the more one experiences a real solitude of power, a prisoner of their role, stuck between flatterers and detractors who give them a distorted image of themselves and their actions. This "lack of ambient love", this "felt ingratitude" are all the more difficult to experience as you seem genuinely concerned about the development of your employees, despite heavy organizational constraints. I suggest a few avenues for reflection:
The role, not the person
A first classic, but important precaution to remember is to dissociate role and person. It is not so much the person you are who is (most often) attacked, but of course the role of manager and the representation attached to it in terms of what it evokes in constraints, power to say no, authority against which one must, in principle, oppose, the embodiment of the "reality principle" against the "pleasure principle", etc. In short, criticism of the manager's person is unfortunately inherent in their position. They are also a convenient scapegoat, a structuring opposition, for some to avoid a painful re-evaluation.
Abandoning universal approval
Becoming more senior in an organization also requires abandoning the belief that one can satisfy everyone, be accepted and approved by all. Some, whose need for belonging is particularly strong, never resign themselves to this and may prefer a more modest, more consensual career that requires some sacrifices in terms of promotion to (at least apparently) keep their "colleagues as friends" and not become "the person to bring down". In all this, one certainty: whatever you do, there will practically always be a grumbler who would have done things differently. Based on this observation, free yourself from the illusory "100% satisfied" and do your best.
Look at the positive aspects
Oxygen becomes scarce at the summit, but the view is beautiful! You are more exposed to criticism, but you are also in a better position to "impact" the organization, to instill your values, your vision. You can more easily validate certain positive behaviors of your employees and, conversely, penalize others that seem counterproductive or incompatible with your work ethic.
Don't look for everything in work
Work is an important sphere of development and socialization for the person, but not the only one. You shouldn't look for everything in work, and a good work-life balance is an essential ingredient to take a step back and put attacks on your professional life into perspective. In some hyper-competitive environments, Anglo-Saxons say in a cruel joke: "if you need a friend, get yourself a dog". Without giving in to this caricatured irony, it is nevertheless necessary to recognize the constraints and limits that weigh on working relationships and tell yourself that what is at stake there is not the totality of your humanity or that of the other.
Finally, you can also ask yourself what to keep from this indirectly received feedback? At a minimum, perhaps an injunction to communicate and communicate even more about the pursued strategy to calm these anxieties which, particularly in times of crisis, take the manager as a scapegoat...
Posted on May 15, 2009
lexpansion.com
We often talk about the importance of giving feedback, showing appreciation to one's subordinates...but we fail to mention that managers also have their own needs. However, the higher one climbs in the organization, the more one experiences a real solitude of power, a prisoner of their role, stuck between flatterers and detractors who give them a distorted image of themselves and their actions. This "lack of ambient love", this "felt ingratitude" are all the more difficult to experience as you seem genuinely concerned about the development of your employees, despite heavy organizational constraints. I suggest a few avenues for reflection:
The role, not the person
A first classic, but important precaution to remember is to dissociate role and person. It is not so much the person you are who is (most often) attacked, but of course the role of manager and the representation attached to it in terms of what it evokes in constraints, power to say no, authority against which one must, in principle, oppose, the embodiment of the "reality principle" against the "pleasure principle", etc. In short, criticism of the manager's person is unfortunately inherent in their position. They are also a convenient scapegoat, a structuring opposition, for some to avoid a painful re-evaluation.
Abandoning universal approval
Becoming more senior in an organization also requires abandoning the belief that one can satisfy everyone, be accepted and approved by all. Some, whose need for belonging is particularly strong, never resign themselves to this and may prefer a more modest, more consensual career that requires some sacrifices in terms of promotion to (at least apparently) keep their "colleagues as friends" and not become "the person to bring down". In all this, one certainty: whatever you do, there will practically always be a grumbler who would have done things differently. Based on this observation, free yourself from the illusory "100% satisfied" and do your best.
Look at the positive aspects
Oxygen becomes scarce at the summit, but the view is beautiful! You are more exposed to criticism, but you are also in a better position to "impact" the organization, to instill your values, your vision. You can more easily validate certain positive behaviors of your employees and, conversely, penalize others that seem counterproductive or incompatible with your work ethic.
Don't look for everything in work
Work is an important sphere of development and socialization for the person, but not the only one. You shouldn't look for everything in work, and a good work-life balance is an essential ingredient to take a step back and put attacks on your professional life into perspective. In some hyper-competitive environments, Anglo-Saxons say in a cruel joke: "if you need a friend, get yourself a dog". Without giving in to this caricatured irony, it is nevertheless necessary to recognize the constraints and limits that weigh on working relationships and tell yourself that what is at stake there is not the totality of your humanity or that of the other.
Finally, you can also ask yourself what to keep from this indirectly received feedback? At a minimum, perhaps an injunction to communicate and communicate even more about the pursued strategy to calm these anxieties which, particularly in times of crisis, take the manager as a scapegoat...
Posted on May 15, 2009
lexpansion.com
