By Dominic and Laura Ashley-Timms, above, co-authors of The Answer Is A Question
There are Frankenstein managers in every workplace – maybe you’ve met one during your own career or you could be one yourself. In reality, most managers are Frankensteins because their style of management is based on the fragments of concepts, experiences, training, and learning all stitched together to make us who we are as managers.
82% of managers receive no formal leadership training to handle the people side of their roles, so it’s no wonder they’re having to improvise, often defaulting to emulating other managers that have come before them (good and bad), whose approaches could be outdated.
When they are not equipped with the right guidance on how to lead, these Frankenstein managers can have a disastrous impact on engagement, performance, and employee wellbeing. Luckily, there is a way for Frankenstein managers to unstitch themselves from outdated management practices and restore their teams’ engagement.
The Frankenstein effect
The most pervasive and outdated management style that Frankenstein managers end up mimicking is a command-and-control approach. This is where managers resort to directing, solving, fixing and firefighting when a team member comes to them with problems. It’s natural for managers to feel they should have all the answers and offer advice on every issue. The problem is, this can easily mutate into a habitual attitude of thinking ‘I can do it best myself’.
In doing so, these managers risk creating a culture of micromanagement, with teams relying on their manager’s input and approval, running every issue past them before taking action. Managers end up taking on the mental burden of solving staff tasks for them, on top of their other managerial responsibilities. This naturally increases their stress levels and the risk of burnout, which is already particularly prevalent in managers, with over half reporting feelings of burnout at work.
Not only is this an unsustainable habit for managers, but it also stunts employee growth. By constantly telling staff what to do, managers rob them of valuable learning opportunities to think through problems themselves and determine solutions independently – an invaluable skill for their career progression. Without this key motivator to succeed, staff ultimately become disengaged. They lack purpose in their work, they have no room to be innovative or contribute their own ideas, and they, in turn, become more stressed about carrying out directives in exactly the way their manager has told them to. And this is a major issue affecting organisations globally—only 23% of the global workforce is engaged with 40% experiencing daily stress.
What can Frankenstein managers do differently?
Breaking free from the mindset of needing to give and have all the answers is vital for managers to reduce workplace stress and supercharge employee engagement. You might be surprised that the best way for managers to achieve this is by learning to ask more powerful questions. This means being less directive and instead learning to become an enabler of the thinking and capabilities of others by adopting more of an enquiry-led approach.
When managers learn to ask more powerful questions of their teams when problems arise, they are offering the other person the opportunity to contribute their own ideas in that moment, rather than offering immediate solutions that can, in fact, marginalise them. A well-intentioned question can stimulate their thinking and engage their problem-solving abilities, which, in turn, could lead to a better outcome. The employee will feel a stronger sense of ownership over the solution – it’s theirs, not the manager’s – which naturally boosts their confidence and resilience to tackle day-to-day issues more independently.
When staff feel more autonomy over their work in this way, they are more engaged, and stress is more easily kept at bay. In turn, managers stop stepping into every problem brought to them and have more time to focus on their managerial responsibilities, reducing stress and streamlining their workload. Ultimately, managers create a psychologically safer and more collaborative working environment where staff feel encouraged to share their ideas and are trusted by their managers to do a good job.
Operational Coaching®—a new way to manage?
Learning to adopt an ‘enquiry-led’ approach is a critical component of a new style of management called Operational Coaching®, which has been proven to generate hugely positive impacts on organisations and their workforce.
A UK-government-sponsored randomised-control trial conducted by the London School of Economics and Political Sciences (LSE) measured the impact of managers learning to adopt this fresh approach toward managing others. Implemented simultaneously across 62 organisations in 14 sectors, managers pursued an innovative online learning programme where they learned how to apply a new model for changing their behaviour (the STAR® model). LSE collected data for 49 separate measures to assess the managers’ impact. The results proved (statistically significantly) that managers were spending 70% more time coaching team members in the flow of work than before. Their capabilities also improved across all nine management competencies measured, contributing to a six-fold improvement in employee retention.
The robust results of this trial light the way for every manager to learn how to adapt their approach in a way that benefits their teams and themselves. When managers are better trained to handle the people side of their roles, instead of being left to patch together a Frankensteinian approach, EVERYONE feels less stressed and more engaged. Operational Coaching® leads to more collaborative, inclusive workplaces where everyone’s contributions are valued.
Dominic Ashley-Timms and Laura Ashley-Timms are the CEO and COO of global performance consultancy Notion. They are the co-creators of the multi-award-winning STAR® Manager online development program being adopted by managers in 40 countries, and are also the co-authors of the new management bestseller The Answer is a Question.
