MIT Sloan Management Review

Human Resource Management and Industrial Relations

Ten Myths of Managing Managers

By Clinton O. Longenecker and Dennis A. Gioia

October 15, 1991

HOW WELL DO UPPER-LEVEL MANAGERS MANAGE THEIR OWN MANAGERS? NOT VERY WELL, ARGUE LONGENECKER AND GIOIA, AFTER INTERVIEWING 261 managers in eighteen organizations. These people felt they needed more guidance, clearer feedback, more carefully established goals, more discussion of their management styles, and more useful performance appraisals, among other things. At a time when many companies are eliminating whole layers of management, and careers are derailed for mediocre performance, managers are understandably anxious about how to improve their performance, and whether anyone’s noticing when they do. The authors describe ten myths of managing managers and provide senior managers with a list of recommendations for changing their behavior and, ultimately, improving their organization’s overall performance.

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Organizational America is working very hard these days to become more competitive. Few organizations have been spared the necessity of taking serious action to fight increased pressures from home and abroad. The message is clear: either become more competitive or run the risk of going out of business.

Organizations have responded to this edict with a wide range of actions, including austerity campaigns, drastic restructurings, new technologies, enhanced customer orientations, and a host of “enlightened” management techniques designed to encourage workforce involvement and quality improvement.1 In this flurry of activity, managers at all levels are being asked to work harder, work smarter, work longer, and question traditional approaches to managing organizational resources.

With increasing frequency managers are urged to change the ways they think and act. Organizations are spending millions on training and development programs, management retreats, quality improvement programs, and a variety of other approaches.2 These intended reforms rest on the assumption that for any organization to improve the overall quality of its management group, managers themselves must be “reshaped” and imbued with a new organizational culture and operating philosophy.3 Managers simply must improve their effectiveness or the organization’s competitiveness is endangered. Peter Drucker recently noted that the greatest challenge to U.S. business in this decade, especially for large companies, may well be the development of... To read the complete article, login or sign-up using the form below.

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