How to Determine If You Are a Power Hungry Manager

And what you can do about it.

Which of the following, if any, is true of you as a manager?:

*I secretly enjoy my staff having to come to me to make every decision, no matter how inconsequential.

*I get a bit of a rush when I am able to point out a flaw in my staff’s work.

*Knowing my team couldn’t function on a daily basis without me gives me a sense of validation that my job is important.

If you said “yes” to any of the above, you are a power-trip manager. And for the sake of both yourself and your staff, you either need to change how you perceive your role as a manager or find another position.

Management is no place for the power-hungry.

Yes, your name is above your staff in the company org chart. But in practice, you should be beneath them, helping to lift them up like Atlas holding up the Earth. Managing a team in any practical sense is a support role: your job is to make sure that the talented people you are leading can do their jobs as effectively as possible.

Supporting your team means removing yourself as a bottleneck.
It means transferring as much autonomy and decision-making power to your people as possible.
It means helping get them the resource they need to do their job effectively.
It means making sure that everyone is oriented in the same direction.
And it means establishing the processes and infrastructure that allow your team to function whether or not you are around.

As a manager, you are not a medieval king and your staff are not your minions. You are a ship captain and, in calm seas, your job is to keep the ship going in the right direction and to help your specialists do their job as effectively as possible. And, in the rare moments a storm hits, your role is take the helm, call the shots, and help get the ship through the storm. But once the storm passes, you go right back to your supporting role.

Smooth sailing is a-ok.

Beware the dangerous contradiction lurking in management: managers feel most useful when things are going poorly.

When things are going poorly, we can save the day. People need us. We feel busy. And because of this, there is a very human temptation on the part of managers to fabricate difficulties to validate our role.

Simply, we want to feel needed.

This is an insecurity, and as managers, we have to shed ourselves of that feeling. Your team is at its best when you aren’t rushing around, you aren’t constantly putting out fires, and aren’t facing a line of staff outside your office asking for your permission to tie their shoes or send an email.

As managers, we need to be honest with ourselves about our motivations for being in the position we are in. Do we want to help people enjoy their jobs more and help them achieve things they didn’t believe they were capable of? Or do we want to get an ego trip over calling the shots from the top of the org chart?

If you are in management because of the latter, there is a good chance you are making the people around you miserable.

And it is only a matter of time before it catches up with you.

Got a hankering for more? You can read more of Aaron on Letters to a Young Professional, you can check out his blog 12HourDifference.co for his thoughts on launching an international career and you can connect with him on LinkedIn or Twitter to chat about…whatever you’d like!

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