The best manager I ever had - sadly, he was the last one before I retired (where was he earlier in my career???) - anyway, he’d give me a project and a deadline, then get out of my way. If I needed something from him, I knew he’d be there for me, and I knew he had my back. He was also the *only *one in 26 years who gave me honest-to-goodness annual performance evaluations - what I did well, what needed work, what he’d like to see me shoot for. He was great!
Worst was the guy who felt that my job was to make him look good. If I wasn’t working on something with a high enough profile to build his reputation, I was ignored. Thankfully, I was reorganized out of his group in less than a year.
Here’s an employee archetype to be aware of: the Gadfly.
You will probably flinch when the Gadfly speaks up in meetings, because their role is to criticize, and you should brace yourself for sarcasm. They’re often annoying, and they can be damaging to morale, but not always.
A good Gadfly can be an asset. A Gadfly with a sense of humor and some self-awareness can be good for morale, because they break the tension by bringing up unspoken issues in a humorous way. Everyone gets a laugh, everyone is relieved that they didn’t have to deliver the bad news, and you get a good setup for addressing the issue. Even without the humor, a Gadfly is the one person most likely to tell you that the emperor has no clothes, and that’s a useful contribution.
A bad Gadfly, on the other hand, tends to be bad for morale. They complain about things that are out of your control, and they do so in a way that makes other team members more nervous, rather than less. They aren’t funny, and they tend to complain more often and more repetitively than a good Gadfly. They wear down their teammates’ enthusiasm.
You won’t stop a Gadfly from being a Gadfly. If you try to quash them, they will probably complain behind your back instead, which is worse. If you manage to actually shut them up, it probably means that you’ve alienated them so badly that they no longer care about the job or the team–also a lousy outcome. It’s better to encourage them to use their powers for good; a frank, private talk about their style and how it affects morale can be helpful. If not, you can at least encourage them to come to you directly with their concerns.
#1 is protecting and supporting your people.
The rest are in any order… being objective, understanding people’s strengths and weaknesses, providing interesting work so people can grow in their jobs… etc…
