Head Tale

They may be introverted or extroverted, new to the role or with years of experience, heavily trained in management theory or have developed their approach through real-life experience.

But, at the end of the day, there are really only two kinds of managers – those who see their role to control others and those who see their role to support others.

The controlling ones are the micromanagers who ask you do to something then end up doing it ten minutes later anyhow since you didn’t do it immediately and probably wouldn’t do it right anyhow.

The supportive ones are the ones who ask you what you need to get a task done, check in to see how you’re doing and find ways to help you achieve the goal but otherwise stay out of the way.

What’s interesting in my experience is that there is a direct correlation between the amount of trust that staff have for the controlling type (not much!) versus the amount of trust that staff have for the supportive type (a lot!)

There’s some irony that the controlling ones often are that way because they don’t trust themselves!  They lack confidence in their own abilities or their experience.  They worry about getting in trouble or how they’ll be perceived by others.  Meanwhile, the supportive ones tend to have a lot of self-confidence and will generally do the right thing or make the right call without over-thinking it or relying on others or whatever.