| Loyalty, Relationship, and Management | April 8th, 2006 |
You need people. You need the confidence that your decisions are based on truth and whole facts. You need good advices. You need them to go the extra mile in desperate time. You need to have your back watched. You need them to mind the store when you are away. You need them to succeed.
Some managers reward loyalty above all. They cultivate loyal followers. These lieutenants, in turn, do the same at their levels. At the end, if they are good, they end up with an organization that is tight and formidable. They can go places, in fact, wherever the boss says.
In an enterprise, this does not work. Management is not that easy, not anymore.
Without affordability, managers frequently found they face the decision of rewarding either loyalty or competency.
High performers than gradually leave and the group is left with 2nd-rated but loyal ones. This still works, for a while. The manager can compensate by focusing them and working them harder. But “driving” your staff is hard work, it also has the side effects of removing delegation.
Since loyalty must be bought and the price pretty high, the manager probably afford to reward everyone equally well. Secrecy becomes necessity. But secrecy divides the group and concentrates power. This makes her group not scalable — incapable for completing larger projects. It also creates single points of failure.
Lastly, loyalty, by definition, suspends one's creativity. This is fatal for software.
Management by relationship is much more satisfying. Relationship, although always 1-on-1, needs no secrecy. It is about role differences, instead of power distribution; respect, not authority; specialization, not command and execution.
You must be genuine and sincere. You must learn how to listen. Pay attention to what is said and think about it. You work on it akin to maintaining friendship.
But work relationship is always different than friendship. Most of the time, you do not choose work relationship. Company interest, work ethics, and policy compliance come first. You will do what you will never to friends. “Close but professional” is the idea.
Did you become a manager for power? It is OK that you did. Just avoid using it as much as you can.