Leading People. Peter Mills

people in specialist roles. They work in the context of a working organization. To be successful, managers must not only understand their own role and that of their direct reporting team, they need to understand the role of others in the organization. Managers deal with five main types of roles. These are:

      

Their direct reporting team members

      

Their own manager

      

Other peer managers

      

Their manager-once-removed–their manager’s manager

      

Specialist/cross-functional roles

      These different roles, each with specific and complementary accountabilities and authorities, are essential to the effective working of an organization.

       Working with Your Direct Reporting Team Members

      All employees are obliged to deliver the outputs required from their role and use the resources and process as specified by the organization. Expectations, however, must go beyond this, as work is a social environment, with individuals using their capability in a goal-directed manner. As with any social situation, there must be standards or expectations of behavior for how people interact. These are the broader accountabilities of all employees on how they are expected to work with their manager, their team and others in the organization.

      Although team members are not accountable for each other’s work, all employees have an accountability to do their best and to work together. To enable productive work, all employees have five accountabilities to their manager.

      These are to:

      1. Fulfill commitments made

      A. Deliver in-full, on-time all their output commitments and expect the same of others. This includes commitments made across the organization to other individuals or departments.

      B. Uphold the organizations values

      C. Under no circumstances should they surprise their manager on the delivery of output commitments.

      2. Bring their full capability to work

      A. Apply their knowledge, skills and experience fully and effectively.

      B. Exercise their own discretion to deliver their outcomes fully and appropriately.

      C. Try different ways to achieve objectives even in difficult circumstances.

      D. Work cooperatively with others to solve problems and share information within the context of the role.

      E. Work within set policies, systems and procedures– refer to a higher level where appropriate.

      F. Accept and adapt to change

      3. Continue to develop their performance effectiveness

      A. Work to improve their personal effectiveness in their role by actively participating in people management processes such as goal setting and development.

      4. Provide their manager with feedback

      A. Actively engage with their manager when tasks are assigned.

      B. Look at ways to improve by providing feedback to their manager on tasks, systems and processes used.

      C. Refer problems that cannot be resolved to their manager for assistance.

      D. Immediately notify their manager if they are unable to achieve assigned task output (quantity, quality, time or cost).

      5. To work together productively

      A. Work together to solve problems within the context set by their manager.

      B. Persuade each other to act in a way that facilitates their own work, to accommodate each other’s needs as far as possible without changing or compromising their accountabilities or agreed/allocated objectives.

      C. Do what is right for the function and the organization, even when this may cause a potential difficulty for their own area.

      D. When they disagree, act as their manager would want them to, before escalating to their manager.

      E. If they cannot reach agreement, they must escalate to their immediate manager who will either clarify the context and/or make a specific trade-off decision.

      The role of the manager is to ensure team members understand these accountabilities and practices, require their application on a day-to-day basis, and hold team members to account for their delivery.

       Working with Your Own Manager

      When working with your own manager, you must continue to deliver the accountabilities that all employees have to their manager.

      Managers do not lose their employee accountabilities when they move into a managerial role, they gain the additional accountabilities of a manager. Therefore, all managers have at least two sets of role accountabilities:

      

One set as the manager of a team, as outlined in “Principle 1: Understand Your Role.”

      

Another set as an individual employee reporting to their own manager as outlined in working with your own direct reporting team members above.

       Working with Peers

      When working with peers, your employee accountabilities continue to apply, particularly the accountability to “work together productively.” That is to:

      

Work together to solve problems within the context set by their manager

      

Persuade each other to act in a way that facilitates their own work, to accommodate each other’s needs as far as possible without changing or compromising their accountabilities or agreed/allocated objectives

      

Do what is right for the function and the organization even when this may cause a potential difficulty for their own area.

      

When they disagree, act as their manager would want them to, before escalating to their manager.

      

If they cannot reach agreement, they must escalate to their immediate manager who will either clarify the context and/or make a specific trade-off decision.

      In this way, the organization works together to achieve business outcomes, and productive working relationships are maintained.

       Working with Your Manager-Once-Removed

      Nearly every employee in an organization has a manager-once-removed (MoR). The MoR is each individual employee’s manager’s manager.

      While most organizations do not