Management’s Character Drives Company Culture
This is a follow-up to a prior post on company culture.
The character traits that define a “good” manager will differ greatly between open, “organic” cultures versus closed, “toy block” cultures.
Two Cultures of Corporate Work
Management in a corporate environment — be it large or small — requires a constant calculus of how to balance the different interests the manager has in their focus.
Most clearly in potential competition are the interests of the employees being managed and the interests of the most senior officers who decide how work should be organized to generate profits, and then what to do with profits generated from those employees’ work.
The characters that define a “good” manager will be communicated and modeled by each managers’ managers, and so on up and down through the organization, and the characteristics that define fit as an employee within a company’s culture (as everyone works for someone) will develop in response to these management characteristics.
Organic Culture
Organizations that clearly value their employees and their contributions to profits will be highly and transparently communicative with their employees about the state of the business. They will approach staff as partners in the generation of profit, and will accordingly share the profits of the organization with those employees. Such sharing will be reflected in pay raises or bonuses clearly communicated as percentages in terms of the company’s overall profits, as well as transparency around pay bands from top to bottom, and a well-enforced policy of equitable pay across roles.
But the character of such a corporation is not limited just to this profit sharing behavior. It is the open communication in such an organization that will define its culture as one that truly values employees. These companies will listen to feedback from all employees, who are recognized as the basis for the profits they generate. But beyond listening and acknowledging they’ve heard, these companies will legitimately consider and act upon inputs from their employees to shape operating policy whenever those ideas have the potential to lead to improvements, even when these ideas differ from the current status-quo or the opinions of the most senior executives (who, in such a culture, are also willing to listen). Thse companies see their employees as critical elements in an organizational whole which can only grow as each part grows. Culture in these companies is organic.
Toy Block Culture
Then there are what I label the “toy block” companies. Here, people are considered pieces that can be snapped into place, removed or moved around anywhere in pursuit of the results that some commanding “master builders” envision building. These companies:
- see staff as profit and loss units in a pre-built profit-making process that is designed and governed by a closed committee of executive decision-making (vs. seeing staff as critical catalysts for driving change who can increase results when consulted around and involved in evolving the company’s approach).
- Do not openly communicate with employees about company performance and what they can expect as a share of achieved profit, and do not really want to hear from employees since they see themselves as the master architects of profit and performance, who organize employees to generate outcomes.
- Do not offer transparency into pay-bands through the organization. Do not enforce equity in pay for roles, and rely on the corporate norm (culture) of not discussing pay to allow inequities to persist.
Management Character
Having a management role in either of the two types of companies described above will be a very different experience depending on where you are.
A company that values employees and open communication with them will inevitably develop a cooperative culture. Effective managers in a cooperative cultures will be valued for behaviors that express:
- their ability to facilitate two-way communication between their teams and the central operating functions of the organization (and those central functions will support the manager and their staff by being open and available for such communication at any volume, frequency and level of detail needed by the team).
- Their ability to put ideas for change into operational action, showing their teams new approaches through leading by example, and patiently bringing people along through the change.
- Showing respect for the people on their teams by helping them navigating work-life balance matters, ensuring that the clearly established and expected work of each role is getting done (with employees who understand the value of their work and receive added benefits from added accomplishments), without allowing employees to become pressured into over-work.
In contrast, a company that sees employees as toy blocks or “resources” who are managed for profit and loss, and that limits the decision making process to a small, closed executive committee, and does not feel a need for continuous openness of communication and access to information will value something different in their managers:
- An ability to express talking-points developed by the Executive Committee as the only information employees need.
- An ability to enforce established operating processes and methodologies, insisting that this is the only way employees should work.
- An ability to gaslight staff into “going above and beyond” for the company without the delivery of added benefits for added efforts.
Getting Back to Company Culture
The culture of any group (in either informal/organic or institutional form) can be most simply thought of as the shared beliefs, norms and behaviors of that group, and the artifacts and outputs that result from the practice of these beliefs, norms and behaviors.
So the type of manager that is valued by an organization and the management enforced norms and behaviors resulting from those organizational values are the real driver of company culture.
Managers stay and succeed in organizations where they find a fit with the culture. To remain a manager in any organization, one must personify the values of that organization.
A cooperative style manager in an organization driven by closed exec-committee values will not last in that organization. Likewise, a manager most comfortable operating in a cascading chain of top-down authority enforcing exec-established approaches to work will not fit the culture of a cooperative organization.
Put simply then, as an employee, the most straightforward way to assess the culture of your company is to assess the way you’re being managed (and perhaps how you’re being asked to manage); and your fit with the culture is how you feel about that.
Personally, there have been a few too many times for my liking where I’ve recognized poor fit with the prevailing management character and company culture only after I’ve become chronically burned out by working to find a fit. Looking back, I recognize now when I was lying to myself about how I felt in a company culture in order to try and fit. Managers also have managers, and I’ve been managed into behaving in the company’s interests as an employee and a manager even when it conflicted with many of my own interests, usually in exchange for the feeling of “being essential” to my management — of getting approval and being designated part of an exclusive inside group. So I know that, especially at work, desire for approval and organizational status is a powerful motivator, and it’s often intentionally used that way by managers. Recognizing this, I’m personally committed not to fall into chasing after that again, and to never leverage this to motivate others when it conflicts with their work-life balance or other areas of wellness.
My hope for everyone reading this is that you recognize that your company’s culture only exists via the values, norms and behaviors expressed daily by the individuals in the organization — most importantly including yourself — and that you therefore understand yourself as a conduit for the existing company culture, and seek to be in a work environment that truly represents your values and personal character.
