What Type of Manager Are You?
5 September 2008
Read by 1676 persons
Tyrannical, engaged, cooperative, or planner, managers are divided into four main categories. A test will even allow you to determine your profile.
Everyone is surprised when a manager, who was said to never succeed, changes jobs and reaches the top in his new company... This is because for each context, circumstance, and type of team to manage, one type of manager is better suited than another. Hervé Bommelaer, a consultant at Leroy Dirigeants-BPI Group, is convinced of this. "Becoming aware of your style, your management posture, is better than saying: I'm going to apply this model. You succeed by first exploiting your strengths." The company and its executives would therefore be winners when the casting is good...
However, depending on changes, a certain type of manager is more in demand than others. By employers, but also by employees. Eric Bohn always asks the candidates he receives what type of manager they would like to work for to feel good... They dream of a boss who listens to them, reports the manager of Euro Consulting Partners, charismatic, able to set precise objectives and provide the means to achieve them, available when necessary, who delegates, controls, trains and respects his troops, decides, makes decisions... A profile too good to be true! "But the salient point that always emerges is listening, which seems to be lacking in the managers who have supervised many of the candidates I receive..."
The context of companies dictates the style of manager to recruit for each one, explain Pascale Bottela (Ile-de-France director) and Philippe Lesage (consultant and coach), from the Alexandre Tic firm. You don't manage scientists like salespeople. But, "in the background, we are generally asked to find directive profiles". And this is not going to change tomorrow with the imperatives of profitability, restructurings, mergers, acquisitions, the study of results month by month, etc., they judge. But, paradoxically, companies want "autocrats" who are adaptable and charismatic... "Virtues that correspond rather to another kind of manager, engaged, open to new ideas, to change, communicative, participatory, etc."
Does the habit make the monk?
The "engaged" style is "quite adapted to today's business world," estimates Hervé Bommelaer. Because it breaks with the disengagement of those who, in the last twenty years, have seen themselves laid off without too much soul-searching, continues the consultant.
Contrary to the previous point of view, Hervé Bommelaer believes that engaged managers are primarily those that companies are now seeking. Or at least, that they should seek in order to reverse the trend of relatively limited employee loyalty... a response to the lack of consistency of some employers. "Directive management is becoming less and less common. An omnipotent boss, who decides, doesn't listen, etc., "passes" with difficulty."
Jean-Louis Muller does not observe the significant emergence of a type of manager. But the director at Cegos still feels the directive mode "pushing". "In a world where people live with anxiety, a boss who asserts that he knows what to do with aplomb reassures... And some supervising very unskilled employees put on a tie..."
For Jean-Louis Muller, it is possible to switch from one management style to another. It is even, according to him, the mark of a clever manager. In the sixties, employees had to adapt to their boss. Today it's the opposite: managers must learn to adapt to their teams and circumstances, he concludes.
However, by delegating, you "contradict your nature," says Philippe Tramond, CEO of Pilotis. Because "it is not natural for a human being to lose control". And circumstances can quickly lead to a switch from one management mode to another... The one who talks with his employees in normal times can become very directive in a storm, no longer accepts that his orders are discussed. Evolution is necessary, continues Philippe Tramond. An autocrat who wants to become a participatory engaged manager can succeed "if he clarifies the meaning of the directives he gives, gets closer to them, takes the time to explain, strengthens human relations..." Is it such a huge undertaking?
Emeric Arré
Posted online on September 5, 2008
lexpansion.com
Everyone is surprised when a manager, who was said to never succeed, changes jobs and reaches the top in his new company... This is because for each context, circumstance, and type of team to manage, one type of manager is better suited than another. Hervé Bommelaer, a consultant at Leroy Dirigeants-BPI Group, is convinced of this. "Becoming aware of your style, your management posture, is better than saying: I'm going to apply this model. You succeed by first exploiting your strengths." The company and its executives would therefore be winners when the casting is good...
However, depending on changes, a certain type of manager is more in demand than others. By employers, but also by employees. Eric Bohn always asks the candidates he receives what type of manager they would like to work for to feel good... They dream of a boss who listens to them, reports the manager of Euro Consulting Partners, charismatic, able to set precise objectives and provide the means to achieve them, available when necessary, who delegates, controls, trains and respects his troops, decides, makes decisions... A profile too good to be true! "But the salient point that always emerges is listening, which seems to be lacking in the managers who have supervised many of the candidates I receive..."
The context of companies dictates the style of manager to recruit for each one, explain Pascale Bottela (Ile-de-France director) and Philippe Lesage (consultant and coach), from the Alexandre Tic firm. You don't manage scientists like salespeople. But, "in the background, we are generally asked to find directive profiles". And this is not going to change tomorrow with the imperatives of profitability, restructurings, mergers, acquisitions, the study of results month by month, etc., they judge. But, paradoxically, companies want "autocrats" who are adaptable and charismatic... "Virtues that correspond rather to another kind of manager, engaged, open to new ideas, to change, communicative, participatory, etc."
Does the habit make the monk?
The "engaged" style is "quite adapted to today's business world," estimates Hervé Bommelaer. Because it breaks with the disengagement of those who, in the last twenty years, have seen themselves laid off without too much soul-searching, continues the consultant.
Contrary to the previous point of view, Hervé Bommelaer believes that engaged managers are primarily those that companies are now seeking. Or at least, that they should seek in order to reverse the trend of relatively limited employee loyalty... a response to the lack of consistency of some employers. "Directive management is becoming less and less common. An omnipotent boss, who decides, doesn't listen, etc., "passes" with difficulty."
Jean-Louis Muller does not observe the significant emergence of a type of manager. But the director at Cegos still feels the directive mode "pushing". "In a world where people live with anxiety, a boss who asserts that he knows what to do with aplomb reassures... And some supervising very unskilled employees put on a tie..."
For Jean-Louis Muller, it is possible to switch from one management style to another. It is even, according to him, the mark of a clever manager. In the sixties, employees had to adapt to their boss. Today it's the opposite: managers must learn to adapt to their teams and circumstances, he concludes.
However, by delegating, you "contradict your nature," says Philippe Tramond, CEO of Pilotis. Because "it is not natural for a human being to lose control". And circumstances can quickly lead to a switch from one management mode to another... The one who talks with his employees in normal times can become very directive in a storm, no longer accepts that his orders are discussed. Evolution is necessary, continues Philippe Tramond. An autocrat who wants to become a participatory engaged manager can succeed "if he clarifies the meaning of the directives he gives, gets closer to them, takes the time to explain, strengthens human relations..." Is it such a huge undertaking?
Emeric Arré
Posted online on September 5, 2008
lexpansion.com
