From the “ROLE” of a manager to the AUTHENTIC manager

Can a “manager” be elaborated as an object of design?

That is the question which was presented by the Design Team of Cognizant Spain.

To design it again first we need to deconstruct what is now.

Is the manager a role that we have built within our consciousness by putting together pieces or features they “supposed to have”? and, is it the role we truly yearn for or do we seek a more authentic version?

But first of all… what actually means to be “in the role of a manager”?

The role/persona

“One could say, with a little exaggeration, that the persona is that which in reality one is not, but which oneself as well as others think one is.” _ Carl Jung

“Persona”, coming from the Greek, was a term that was used to designate the large masks that Greek actors would wear to portray their characters.

In a workforce historically described with definitions of hierarchy or status, this “persona”/role of a manager was beyond the person itself. The “persona” would be the aspect of the personality that has been adapted to culture, more specifically to social dominance hierarchy (the psychologist Jordan Peterson calls it “competence hierarchy”). Being this “persona” required different treatment, vocabulary and way of acting towards others. In the old paradigma of management, managers were seen and acted upon a role that was not accessible from the roles “behind”. In addition, the roles “behind” also acted as “personas”/roles that were in an “inferior status”. In this situation, no one is having a real relationship with each other (as Carlos Liberal mentions in his article Anatomy of a Manager: “There is an aspect very important in the process of building trust and that is authenticity”). Only the roles are having a fake relationship with each other.

This perpetuation of the image, rather than the reality, became means of separation between employees.

The new paradigm of management looks beyond the mask, into the core of people. It looks for commonalities rather than differences. It works with the axioma that all of us share our humanity. It builds real connections between people.

And how do we guarantee that we get real with other people? Getting real with ourselves:

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate” (…) “Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves”_ Carl Jung

Carl Jung said that our shadow gets projected onto others. Sometimes managers get upset with others (and viceversa) without understanding that it is a projection of some inner side/insecurity they are not aware of. Example: senior gets annoyed by junior’s proactivity because of his insecurity that he is not good enough. He will transform it into a “they are not respecting me”. This process is also bidirectional and happens in everybody’s psyche.

That’s why managers need to be the ones that know themselves the most. They need to know and own their shadows, insecurities, weaknesses, strengths and types of knowledge (as Leonel Foggia explains in his article “The myth of the manager that needs to know it all”) and to not take things personally and lead through their example of integrity.

But there is a missing piece in all that, how do we learn to know ourselves and the rest of people more?

Through the big 2 “E”s:

Empathy and Emotions.

“Real feelings and emotions. Those elements that were inexistent in the old paradigm of aseptic hierarchy of roles. Because at the end, what makes us human?”

Stephen R. Covey, in his book “7 habits of highly effective people” talked about the habit of seek first to understand, then to be understood as one of the main culprits of effective management. Being called the habit of empathetic communication, he describes that next to physical survival, the greatest need of a human being is psychological survival… to be understood, affirmed, validated, to be appreciated.

Other authors have mentioned the importance of being considerate with other people’s feelings at work. Dale Carnegie, in his book “How to win friends and influence people” talks about one of the most underrated need of people and the one that is more important after food, shelter, etc is the need to be appreciated.

Appreciation can change people’s mood in just seconds (again my coworker noticed here “the importance of good quality feedback”). Don’t you think the happier and better understood we are, the better we act in our workspace?

Feminine management has nothing to do with gender.

“Permanent loss of the anima means a diminution of vitality, flexibility and of human kindness”_ Carl Jung

Again with Jung, the anima is the feminine side that is inside of all us. The animus is our masculine side. It doesn’t relate to being a woman or a man. It is just a matter of polar energies.

Masculine is about drive, set goals and reach goals, focus on the outcomes, DO, DO, DO, tunnel vision, fight, sacrifice, logic part of the brain, frustration when things are not met or when people don’t respond as excepted, sharp. We need to differentiate between the healthy masculine, which is veery needed (drive, goals, focus sharp) and toxic masculine (lack of emotion, narcissism, manipulation, frustration, insecurity, too tight with outcomes, thinking in people as resources instead of human beings, individualism and lack of connection with others)

Feminine is about “receiving”, about BEING, redirection (aikido) transform preexisting forces and redirect them towards what the team wants, it doesn’t get tired. Differentiate between healthy feminine, which has rarely been implemented in the workspace (emotional, nurturing, receive, being, not doing, feeling, finding whats genuinely good in employees and situation and start from there instead of trying to change people of situations, it’s about receiving and redirect it/transform it instead of going towards a tight outcome) and toxic feminine (passive-aggressive, weakness, lack of healthy boundaries, not assertive).

Leadership needs to be rebalanced more into its feminine energy (and support healthy preexisting masculine). It needs to thrive in connection among people, collective work, kindness and not egoistical individuality.

Did the manager get more authentic?

After all this research we can conclude that to remove the mask from the managers, they, (and we) need to look into his authentic human self.

Managers are more than ever needed to dig into their self-exploration with empathy and curiosity. The more they will know themselves the more they will know the employees they work with and the more they will be a catalyst of change. Doing so they will get the best out of every situation and person.

And… we could finally relate with one another with real human connections :)