# Why management exists

Management is [formalized power](power-types.md) over another person's actions:

- Typically, most managers work in an [employment](jobs-1_why.md) capacity, but it arises naturally in any [significantly-sized group](groups-small.md).
- *All* organizations need great workers empowered by great managers.

Management is always implementing more order into any system.

- Management often means making and adhering to systems.
- While management generates a top-down sense of order, great management permits benign chaos (e.g., individual workers' personal lives).

A [corporate culture](groups-large.md) arises through great leaders fostering great workers and, later, *other* great managers.

- A great manager can turn a mediocre or failing [organization](groups-large.md) into a thriving, productive one.

Like [accounting](money-accounting.md), [marketing](marketing.md), or [IT](computers.md), inserting more management into a system is *not* always a good idea.

- Management is inherently a support role, though many managers don't see themselves that way (more on that below under "Bad managers").
- People can often work better alone without supervision, especially if they [believe](trust.md) in the outcome of what they do.
- For most teams, the lead worker will simply become a part-time manager as part of their role.
- The ideal time to employ a full-time manager is when a worker will do better working with others, but when there are so many people that the best worker can't reliably delegate and direct everyone.

Like [success](success-1_why.md) and [investing](money-investing.md), there's a *lot* of bad management advice:

- Even when it doesn't pay well compared to their subordinates, many people wish to be managers because they desire [job security](safety.md) without much work or crave [power](power-types.md) over others.
- A manager who [appears](image.md) to be competent or powerful to *their* boss is technically easier than actual competence or power.
  - A manager's results are [numerically tracked](math.md) in most conventional roles, and [Goodhart's Law](lawsaxioms.md) compounds because their performance comes directly from their *subordinates'* [results](results.md).
- The formal [culture](people-culture.md) of most managerial roles mean managers don't receive direct correction by their subordinates (or those people are quickly replaced).
- Most people who [succeed](success-1_why.md) at management, but desire more [wealth](money-1_why.md), move on from managing.

## The image of management

Our [religious tendencies](religion.md) mean we tend to draw behind the [image](image.md) of a leader, and that leader tends to become a [symbolic depiction](symbols.md) of the [group's values](groups-small.md).

- It takes an entire [group of people](groups-small.md) to do anything significant, but someone always ends up maintaining the group's [culture](people-culture.md), and they eventually become the "face" of the organization.
- Even [inventions](technology.md) and [social trends](trends.md) advanced by 1 person create an informally managed group once a few dozen fans start engaging with it.

Management reproduces the role of high-quality [fatherhood](parenting-children.md) we inherit from our [upbringing](maturity.md), but tends to have a more limited scope of [love](people-love.md) and [human connection](people-4_friends.md):

- [Aptitude](success-1_why.md) (or at least competence) in the group's specialization.
- Behavior that appears [decisive](understanding-certainty.md).
- Distant enough with subordinates to stay relatively [unbiased](mind-bias.md), but close enough to provide [emotional](mind-feelings.md)/[moral](morality.md) support.

Actual management, however, includes a few extra details the image fails to portray:

1. Management is more about leadership than [negotiation](people-conflicts-negotiation.md). [Conflicts](people-conflicts.md) are a common-enough issue with people, but most [power struggles](power.md) can be avoided by [strong](power-types.md), [decisive](people-decisions.md) leaders that give clear and practical examples of what to do.
2. Most management includes lots of [organization](organization.md), along with lots of [communication](people-conversation.md) that [inspires](meaning.md) others to add to that organized state themselves.
3. Managers are forced to take responsibility for difficult [decisions](people-decisions.md). Most of them are choices between an awful thing and something worse.

Management has also gotten a bad reputation for several reasons:

1. Similarly to [entrepreneurship](entrepreneur-1_why.md), most management books are written by lucky people whose techniques may or may not be worth reproducing.
2. The [power](power-types.md) that comes from managerial authority draws many people who desire nothing more than that power.
3. we often can learn from others' failures more than mistakes, but books about failed management are rarely top sellers.

## Qualifications

Anyone can be a manager if they're given the role, but *successful* management directs people toward a [purpose](purpose.md) and helps them accomplish it.

- The [specialization](jobs-specialization.md) to manage is uniquely different from most other specializations.
  1. They must effectively communicate what an individual is supposed to do, and often far more frequently.
  2. They must convey [meaning](meaning.md) to their charges enough that they do what they're told.
  3. They're held responsible for whether those other people do it.
- Many roles encompass this concept:
  - Office managers
  - Administrators
  - [Executives](mgmt-7_changes.md)
  - [Pastors](mgmt-church.md)
  - [Overseers and controllers](bureaucracy.md)
  - [Politicians](politics-conservativeliberal.md)
- All work tends toward [a form of specialization](jobs-specialization.md), and managers specialize in [communication](people-conversation.md).
  - The complexities of communication mean managers need broader understanding of many things (and, therefore, shallower).
- Most of the time, managers gravitate to informal leadership roles automatically before they've ever become a manager:
  - A tendency toward [teaching others](education.md).
  - Assisting in running a church or social club.
  - High-quality [parenting](parenting-children.md).
  - Consistently active on social media.

Almost everyone is *capable* of being a manager, but not everyone has the [personality](personality.md) that they'd enjoy it:

- Openness to Experience must be somewhere in the middle.
  - They must accept the [inevitable changes](people-changes.md) and [chaos](unknown.md) that come with [groups of people](groups-small.md) as well as [results](results.md) that are *rarely* in their direct control.
  - However, they can't desire change so much that they'd alienate the more [slow-changing members](habits.md) of the group they're leading.
- Conscientiousness must be at least above-average.
  - They will have to follow *many* rules and honor more commitments than most other roles.
  - However, they can't be so heavily conforming to the rules that they disregard the human aspect of tasks.
- Extraversion must be in the middle, but it probably helps to skew higher towards being charismatic.
  - They'll have to [organize and track projects](mgmt-2_projects.md).
  - But, most of them must have at least a few important [conversations](mgmt-5_communication.md) or [public speeches](language-speaking.md) every day.
- Agreeableness must be average to above-average.
  - They'll often have to make goals and [decisions](people-decisions.md) without others' input.
  - They'll also need to confront [conflicts](people-5_conflicts.md) as they happen, which will likely include firing someone at least once.
  - At the exact same time, they must win [friends](people-4_friends.md) over and avoid most conflicts *before* they become an issue.
- Neuroticism must be low enough to never lose control of their [feelings](mind-feelings.md).
  - Maintaining their composure is the only way to build and maintain others' [trust](trust.md) as being reliable.
- The specific and intense demands of higher-level managerial roles often mean [Cluster B and ASD](mind-neurodivergence.md) are unusually frequent compared to many other domains.
  - Both of them also tend to fail in the domain of social skills (ASD from [unawareness](awareness.md), Cluster B from apathy), which is part of why [management can develop stereotypes](mgmt-badsystems.md).

Managers have to battle the conflicting interests between their subordinates and *their* managers, so there are several major ways to fail:

1. Prioritize subordinates over superiors.
   - Their leadership is an outstanding environment to work in and grow [as an employee](jobs-1_why.md).
   - If their superiors only use performance metrics, they will *not* advance farther compared to other managerial candidates.
   - These represent the most among many large organizations' lower-tier management (e.g., store manager, shift supervisor).
2. Prioritize their superiors over their employees.
   - The work environment is typically harsh and, for a wide variety of reasons, worker turnover is often higher.
   - If their superiors only use performance metrics, they'll likely advance further up the management ladder ([Goodhart's Law](lawsaxioms.md)).
   - These tend to congregate at the top of most large organizations' management (e.g., executives).
3. People who were great at other non-management specializations, but they stopped being competent once they were promoted to manager ([Peter Principle](lawsaxioms.md)).
   - Extreme competence in a non-management capacity does *not* guarantee competence in management.
   - They generally have no idea what they're doing.
   - Typically, if they keep working they'll either stay as a manager and lose the skills they had sharpened to get to that position, or downgrade themselves back to being a worker in another role.
   - Sometimes a manager is simply the wrong personality for the role.
     - Some roles require more [organization](organization.md), and others require more [people](people-3_boundaries.md).
     - The only way to distinguish between whether a manager was a bad choice or simply misplaced is through observing their performance in other management roles.
4. Prioritize themselves over others.
   - Their leadership role is simply a means for self-promotion.
   - Many of them will hide their selfishness through plenty of education and [clever language tricks](image-distortion.md).
   - In fact, many of them are experts at hiding their failures.
   - However, there are some clear ways to tell:
     - They appear to be the most capable person in an otherwise inept team.
     - They're more likely to identify the group with "I" instead of "we".
     - The people who work for them clearly have things they wish they could say, but don't feel [safe](safety.md) to say it.

## Leading > managing

All managers *should* have leadership qualities because managers must perform specific results:

- Bring a sense of [mission or vision](purpose.md) to seemingly mundane tasks.
- Can identify [potential candidates](mgmt-3_teams.md).
- Nurtures late-bloomers who aren't rising to their presented challenges.
- Fire or dismiss lazy, uncooperative, and complaining workers.
- Adapt to the situation as it [changes](people-changes.md).
- [Loyal](trust.md) to the [organization](groups-large.md) they're working to [build or maintain](creations.md).
- Capable of making clear [decisions](people-decisions.md) confidently enough that others [trust](trust.md) them.

While management itself is a role, leadership is a mindset and skillset:

- [Moral character](morality.md) that drives them [fearlessly](mind-feelings-fear.md) into [decisions](people-decisions.md) that [take action](results.md).
- At least some degree of [maturity](maturity.md) and [awareness](awareness.md) to control their [emotions](mind-feelings.md) and take [personal responsibility](meaning.md).
- Concerned more about their group's or team's [interests](purpose.md) than themselves.
- Confident about their decisions without regrets, but humble enough to make dramatic changes when they're wrong.

Decent management is *always* coaching.

- While "human resources" implies people are interchangeable supplies, they all have individual lifestyles and personalities.
- Mentorship and leadership guides members to be better people overall, which is a long-term investment of both showing by example and consistently serving others.
- Good coaching comes through complete trust and honesty, which requires at least [adequate interpersonal skills](people-3_boundaries.md).

Managers are granted roles from someone in a position of authority who liked them, but leaders express their competence before they *ever* become managers:

- Others tend to stop and listen whenever they speak.
- Wherever they go, they'll tend to take charge, and others will want to follow them.
- Leaders' decisions are [self-directed actions](purpose.md) driven by a [principle](values.md) or [plan](imagination.md), while managers' decisions may be more broadly [acting in opposition](people-conflicts.md) to something else or following a [social fashion](trends.md).

The primary distinguishing features between a leader/manager and a manager-in-title-only comes through:

1. How they make difficult [decisions](people-decisions.md).
2. How they own those decisions when they make a mistake.

## Bad managers

Many managers only have a [formal title](power-types.md) that implies specific responsibilities toward [directing projects](mgmt-2_projects.md) and [communicating results](mgmt-5_communication.md).

- Instead of directing [meaning](meaning.md), bad managers often simply state [purposes](purpose.md) and give incentives (e.g., money, disciplinary action).
- [Middle managers](mgmt-middle.md), in particular, can frequently be *terrible* at leadership.

The stereotype of bad managers distill to a few key details:

- Not particularly competent as an individual or in [certain domains](jobs-specialization.md), but no [self-awareness](awareness.md) of that fact.
- Accepts personal mediocrity about self-directed tasks and [goals](success-3_goals.md), which leads to some amount of hypocrisy with their expectations of others.
- Either poor [interpersonal](people-3_boundaries.md) or [communication](language-speaking.md) skills, or insufficient enthusiasm to motivate others.
- Poorly [understood](understanding.md) or poorly articulated [vision](imagination.md) or [purpose](purpose.md), or maintains contradicting priorities.
- Unwilling to hear [constructive input](people-conflicts.md) from subordinates or peers, especially about matters which may imply [change](people-changes.md) (and therefore more work).
- Refusing to learn from mistakes and failures that may require [change](people-changes.md) if [understood](understanding.md) and acknowledged.
- Disinterest in helping others [grow](maturity.md), improve, or [succeed](success-1_why.md) unless they receive some of the [credit](image.md).
- Obsessed about goals or the group's well-being without concern for individuals in the group.

Most of the time, these managers rise into their role because the organization needed a human being in a spot, and nobody else was around.

Many [larger group](groups-large.md) managers are *not* leaders:

- Most worker promotions to manager come from non-leadership motivations:
  - A manager observed they were competent in a *non*-management role.
  - A manager personally preferred that subordinate.
  - Someone saw management as an opportunity to have [power](power-types.md) and [influenced](power-influence.md) their superiors to give them that role.
- Great manager-makers must detect leadership aptitude in others, but not feel threatened by it.
- Further, if a manager promotes someone (even badly), they might have [political](power-types.md) reasons:
  - Giving power to someone takes power away from someone else.
  - The boost to that worker's ego means they're more likely to stay loyal to the group, which means they're less likely to leave.
  - [Groups can't admit they're wrong](groups-small.md), so a manager can easily [become the public scapegoat](image-distortion.md) for a change the manager wants to make.
- Business [schools](education.md) tend to churn out MBA [technical idiots](https://gainedin.site/idiot/) who have poor [people skills](people-3_boundaries.md), but are skilled at [negotiating](people-conflicts-negotiation.md) lower employee pay.
  - In a group of them, their culture may often even instill outright *contempt* for subordinates.

Watch for key phrases and behaviors that show non-leader managers (NLMs):

- Planning in a meeting for future meetings, but no agreement on actual things that specific people must do.
- Closing discussions with non-relevant dialogue.
- Tons of small talk or discussion about topics not related to current issues being addressed.
- A general feeling of comfort or ease, without any clear ambition toward anything in particular.
- As people age, these issues can often express more severely:
  - They may grow complacent without many challenges to overcome.
  - They might have lost their passion to [fix problems](https://adequate.life/fix/).
  - Money or [safety](safety.md) started becoming a higher priority than results.

When nobody leads by asking questions that provoke change, NLM [culture](people-culture.md) will naturally build into a predictable, unique, [silly](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyV_UG60dD4) pattern of manager behavior:

- Using the passive voice and vague clarifications, which avoid risking a [verbal commitment](people-contracts.md) or expressing [certainty](understanding-certainty.md) ("For some time...", "Approximately..." "It was agreed...").
- Dense and meaningless jargon, which shows both a lack of [understanding](understanding.md) and unwillingness to own that lack of understanding.
- Endless meetings and email conversations to [communicate](mgmt-5_communication.md) status on projects, but without legitimately assisting to [make results](results.md) within those projects.
- Sometimes projecting [family-based](people-family.md) roles onto the subordinates, then reversing direction and behaving impersonally under the pretense of [professionalism](professionals.md) when they may be held accountable on it.
- Often dismally [unaware](awareness.md) of how everyone else [sees them](image.md).

Great management can't be trained because the managers must *choose* to be authentic and behave maturely.

- Identifying with members' feelings and defects requires vulnerability about personal weaknesses.
- Healthy [conflict resolution](people-5_conflicts.md) requires understanding everyone's interests.

In most management capacities, it's surprisingly easy to *appear* productive, but also not *be* productive.

- It's the same risk as [non-productively being busy](success-4_routine.md) with endless distractions that don't do actual work.

## The specific components of a manager role

A manager has a few possible ways to interpret their role:

1. [Fixer](https://adequate.life/fix/) - the team is fulfilling various [purposes](purpose.md), and the manager can step in to intervene if anyone needs guidance or anything goes wrong.
2. [Messenger](language-speaking.md) - the manager has requirements based on [rules](people-rules.md), and the subordinate should be [rewarded or punished](habits.md) for their results.
3. Team - in both good and bad ways, the leader is responsible for what the group does, and is equally responsible to [make the *members* responsible](meaning.md) as well.

No single management style works for all situations, for several reasons:

1. Managers are usually held solely responsible for the [decisions](people-decisions.md) they've made, but each manager's [personality](personality.md) is uniquely different and they'll take that responsibility in different ways.
2. Each individual person contributes to the [collective essence of each group](groups-small.md), and each member's [personality](personality.md) has particular requirements or requires specific kinds of attention.
3. Even among similar domains, every group's [purpose](purpose.md) is at least a little different (e.g., [accounting](money-accounting.md) department in a retail corporation vs. a construction corporation), and this compounds the idiosyncrasies from #1 and #2.

The manager's skills will need to be appropriate to the team's purposes:

- Excellent communication skills.
- Skill at [influencing others](power-influence.md) to their perspective.
- [Curates their image](image-distortion.md) and [crafts stories](stories.md) to appear at least a little better than [reality](reality.md).
- Adapts to change and inspires others to it as well.
- Able to calmly [analyze](logic.md) the situation enough to [understand](understanding.md) the [wisest path](results.md) to take.
- Appearing fearless in the face of hardship.
- Creates [rules](people-rules.md).
- Follows rules.
- Takes responsibility for a team's results.
- Beyond ideals, focused on [practical results](results.md).
- Sees the long-term [consequences](results.md) of their decisions.

This range of skills varies by [industry](jobs-industries.md) as well, with some requiring more of some and less of others.

Most management roles clarify the contrast between prioritizing relationships versus tasks, but *every* manager must love their work.

- Happy leaders make generally happier members, who will mirror their leaders' behavior and attitude with more enthusiasm, confidence, and productivity.

## Management theories

Since every management situation is different, there isn't a good all-in-one solution.

- The only thing managers get are *many* various conceptual frameworks, which represent simplifications of [human universals](humanity-universals.md).
- A manager has to figure out how a general model will work with the [culture mix](people-culture.md) in their current group.
- Since managers are of a generally higher Conscientiousness than everyone else, they *frequently* tend to forget that others aren't as conformant to [rules](people-rules.md).

Every single change will redefine how the models may implement.

- The only way to navigate is through a strong [intuition](mind-feelings.md) for how people work and a commitment to [ethics](morality.md).

[Management style theories](mgmt-1_why-theories.md)