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True Managers Work Themselves Out of a Job

The role of a Sales, Service, Parts, Body Shop

Any Management position can be defined many ways, and the measure of success can also be defined many ways. Most of today's managers were promoted up through the ranks, sharing as much information, thoughts, suggestions, and recommendations along the way with their previous managers as well as their co-workers. They were seen as team players. In fact, they were seen as team 'leaders' and when an opportunity to promote them presented itself, there was little doubt in anyone's mind that they were the right man/woman for the job.

However, something happens to many of these new managers once they have arrived in their new positions; they forget all of the skills, attributes and demonstrated team-building efforts that got them the promotion in the first place. All of a sudden, the new manager is keeping all of the information to themselves. They develop a habit of 'leave it with me, and I'll take care of it myself.'

Unfortunately this results in an excessive workload for the inexperienced manager and they are forced to take work home, stay late, don't take lunches, arrive early and ultimately start neglecting the staff that had so much confidence in him to take the department to the next level. They have lost all of the confidence in themselves and fear that if they aren't there, someone will sneak in and steal their job during their lunch break. These managers have fallen into the 'If I'm the only one who knows something, I'm too valuable to be replaced, even if sales go down' syndrome. To quote David Cameron, they 'View themselves as the keepers of wisdom and authority.'

This style of manager unfortunately is not developing his/her staff whatsoever. True managers, true leaders develop their staff through continuous training, role playing and re-training to the point of empowering their staff to make virtually every decision necessary to efficiently function with management's knowledge, not intervention. As this development continues, the manager's role becomes solely ensuring future business, and has effectively worked him/herself out of the role of manager. If you are a manager and arrive back from a vacation or even a day off to a stack of paperwork that needs to be approved, have several customer concerns that occurred while you were gone that require your immediate attention now, you are not there yet.

Train, role play, empower, and then delegate the workload to your staff. You will become a great manager in the process, be not afraid!