Academy of Management

How Organizations Undermine Managers’ Effectiveness

By Daniel Butcher

Many organizations are guilty of some common missteps when it comes to how they’re handling their managers.

Academy of Management Scholar Carol Kulik of the University of South Australia said that part of the problem is that managers don’t have the chance to practice leadership skills or management strategies and tactics before they have to actually put them into practice leading a team.

“Many line managers don’t get proper training before taking on their role, and as a result, their first thought is the impact of employees’ career-development decisions on themselves; this is a very natural reaction,” Kulik said. “So when an employee comes to you and says, ‘I have this other job opportunity, and I’m going to be leaving,’ it’s hard for line managers in the moment to say, ‘Oh, that does sound like a good opportunity; I’m happy for you,’ because what they’re thinking in their head is, ‘Oh, this really sucks for me, because I’ve made this big investment in onboarding and developing you and now I’m going to have to replace you.’

“Leadership has to train line managers to find the right words at the right time,” she said. “And most organizations don’t make that investment in their line managers. “I know it sounds contradictory, but line managers need to have these scripts available, to be prepared for the unexpected.”

Kulik said that she encourages organizations to look carefully at their line managers.

“I often call them the unsung heroes,” she said. “Organizations have so much hanging on the line managers doing the right thing at the right time in individual interactions with their team members, and I think they’re chronically underappreciated in organizations today.”

A sample of Kulik’s AOM research findings:

Author

  • Daniel Butcher is a writer and the Managing Editor of AOM Today at the Academy of Management (AOM). Previously, he was a writer and the Finance Editor for Strategic Finance magazine and Management Accounting Quarterly, a scholarly journal, at the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA). Prior to that, he worked as a writer/editor at The Financial Times, including daily FT sister publications Ignites and FundFire, as well as Crain Communications’s InvestmentNews and Crain’s Wealth, eFinancialCareers, and Arizent’s Financial Planning, Re:Invent|Wealth, On Wall Street, Bank Investment Consultant, and Money Management Executive. He earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Colorado Boulder and his master’s degree from New York University. You can reach him at dbutcher@aom.org or via LinkedIn.

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