HOW TO: Manage – Where is your allegiance?

One of the formidable obstacles that managers face when moving from a worker to a manager is the necessary shift in allegiance. Early in my own career I put myself in a devastating conflict of allegiance in the workplace. I learned a hard lesson about how allegiance works in business and why it is important to good decisionmaking.

Workers typically agree to a measure of allegiance to a company when they accept a job. This measured allegiance is given by the worker and expected by the company as part of the mutually beneficial opportunities of the job.

But when a worker is offered and accepts a management position, the worker and the company dramatically change their existing relationship. In barter for the management role and associated benefits, a company expects a worker to assume an obligation of allegiance to the company that dramatically exceeds the measured allegiance of a worker.

The problem is that this new obligation is rarely stated, defined, or discussed. But in business it is always presumed to be part of the management package. What is it?

The obligation of allegiance that a manager assumes is -- the company first in all decisions.

If this sounds deceptively simple to do, then you have never done it. This is the most difficult, troublesome, and wrenching obligation that any manager will face in business. Working to apply this counter-intuitive concept faithfully to management decisionmaking is so hard that it can break your heart, and skirmish with your soul.

But, if you do not acknowledge and embrace this obligation, you will fail as a manager. How do you make the shift in allegiance that is required of a manager? You do some very hard things that you do not like or want to do – create distance and forego chain of command friendships.

You cannot execute your obligations as a manager unless you step apart from your fellow workers, create a necessary detachment, and then make decisions and judgments based only on the good of the business, and not on other loyalties.

Tough work indeed.

This does not mean you should engage in power wielding or arrogance. It means create appropriate distance through your actions. Keep silent about what you know. Do not discuss plans or pending actions, until it is appropriate to do so. Do not gossip about anything. If asked, change the subject. If that does not work, say that you cannot discuss it, and then do not discuss it.

Workers talk. Small talk binds them together.

Managers do not talk. Company obligation sets them apart.

The blunt truth is that people who report to you cannot be your friends. The work has to come before the friendship. A manager cannot manage a friend with the effectiveness, the objectivity, and the fairness that are owed to direct reports.

Early in my management career I had a best friend at work who reported to me. I valued her in my life, both inside and outside of work. She managed a lucrative account that was suddenly in danger of leaving. I asked my friend what was wrong, and I worked to fix it. But the risk grew. Finally, I did the right thing and asked the customer directly what was wrong. I was shocked to discover that the problem was my friend.

I did not see it because of our friendship. I easily slid into deferring to her judgment. I did not do my job with her, as I would have with anyone else. In the end, she could not accept the direction she needed from a friend. I could not effect proper detachment to influence her. After great and uncomfortable effort on both our parts, she was asked to leave. Our friendship did not survive.

With experience I have come to understand that, by their very nature the allegiance of friendship and the allegiance of management may be in conflict in the workplace. Each is better served by excluding the other.

This does not mean you cannot be a friendly and caring manager. It does not mean that you cannot inquire about someone’s family or be interested in their lives and well being. It means that if you are in a friendship with a direct report, it is nearly impossible for the friendship not to intrude on your judgment.

The obligation of allegiance that a manager assumes is -- the company first in all decisions.

Copyright © 1998, 1999, 2000 by D.E. Summerville. All rights reserved.

The advice and suggestions in the Women in Business column are solely those of the author. DC Web Women assumes no responsibility for its content.

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