It’s a good goal. An admirable one, even.
One of the top comments that seems to come up, both in casual conversation as well as in coaching conversations with young professionals, is that they want to be a manager, or a higher level manager, or an executive; and I think that’s a good thing. It’s good to want more responsibility. It’s good to want to serve others. It’s good to be motivated and have goals. It’s good to want to have a positive impact on people and organizations. Wanting those things is good.
But let’s not kid ourselves. There are some things people think are true of management positions, but they’re really not. Like, “If I could just be a manager, then [insert the good thing that is believed to naturally follow a person’s ascension to a management position here]….” Or, “Being an executive sounds awesome because then I’d get to [insert those real or imagined perks here].” What are some of those things some folks believe–those myths–about being a manager or executive?
1. It means you can sit in your office and surf the web all day.
2. You just get to tell everyone else what to do.
3. It’d be way easier than what you’re doing now.
4. Since you don’t have set hours, you get to make your own schedule.
5. Such a thing as free time during the day exists.
6. You’re the one person who will finally be able to crack the leadership code and lead in such a way that your team is always performing at a high level.
7. You get to leave early whenever you want.
8. You get to roll in about 9:00 AM most mornings, gourmet cup of coffee in hand.
9. You’ve read lots of leadership books, so you’ve got this.
10. It’ll be nice having a 40-hour work week.
11. Your team will always like you.
12. There’s never a time when #11 will not be true.
13. You get along well with people at the office, so the human dynamics part of management will be easy.
14. You’re going to teach your team more than they’re going to teach you.
15. Terminating people won’t be that hard.
Look, we’ve all probably had at least a couple of these thoughts at some point. I smile to myself now as I think back several years to when quite a handful of the above ran through my mind at least a time or two. If only I had stumbled across a blog post…
No. 3 is the big one that slaps you in the face after you do step up.
I know, right? Geez.
A quick comment about managing–from someone who’s had both good and bad experiences. Put more effort into hiring great people than anything else you do, because those decisions could well be what make you or break you as a manager.
It’s a great point, Thad. In a lot of ways, perhaps sometimes those unfortunate team environments are sort of like the old “you made your bed, now you sleep in it” adage in some ways and in some instances. Not always or even most of the time of course–but there are times we’ve all been in that spot where we’ve made hiring decisions that weren’t great and paid for it down the road. But that’s more on us than anyone else.
Get to stay home when it snows and working from home today
These are hilarious…
Glad you enjoyed them. It was fun putting them together. It struck me how different reality as a manager was than what I had pictured it to be in my head way back in the day.
Same goes for those of us who step out and decided to own our own business.