Most of us, in our lives we work under the guidance and direction of our manager. There’s of course a lot of talk of servant leadership and how managers become servants to the team. Sometimes it sounds like a good fairy tale story. At other times it’s demonstrated with some apparently visible (albeit trivial) stuff. When managers cook food for the employees – it just shows that the manager cares for the team. Absolutely at the symbolic level. It could be a demonstration of the intent. What happens after that – when you work … I believe that is where it matters. Or the day when the managers put up a fancy dress show, or do a cat walk. Wow! it gives employees something to talk and have fun!

I am not belittling these visible and small little things. They bring relief in the workplace. They make the team feel closer to the manager. They are at best enablers to the eventual outcome.  To me the true show of this is when your manager does what can impact your career positively; what can propel you to do your best and not just be content with what’s needed.

When someone argues your case, isn’t that person working for you? When someone looks at you to be the decider on continuing or exiting the business – does it feel like that person is working for you? When someone let you to override what they believe is right, don’t you feel you are the person-in-charge?

Here I am sharing with you some real life stories of mine.

The story of an imposing customer

This was the early days of a small company. We had just begun our operations. We had ramped up our team. I was part of the senior management team running this entity. We were actively scouting for customers. Our frontline started to have a dialog with a reasonably large financial services company in the US east coast region. Every month, it looked like the deal with the customer was imminent that month. However, the process of proposing and wooing this company went on for nearly six months.  Finally we get our entry. It was a great feeling that we had finally won over this customer’s business. It was small to start with – but nevertheless, we had a customer. We were confident that with good services we will be able to soon scale up. I was the lead from the delivery organization on this deal. Our CEO and MD had stated that he was always available for them should they need him.  [I have seen this ritual in all places almost all the time.]

In all engagements, at the outset, there are bound to be a few small issues (that happen despite your best effort). Most of the customers don’t make too much of it, if your overall service is good. They are sorted out in your operational meetings. Those meetings normally happen between the managers at both ends.

The VP here wanted to get involved in the operational meetings. Soon every small little detail was getting blown out of proportion. He wanted to have a call on every issue with the CEO. After the first few calls it became a real challenge. His argument was simple – look my organization is a couple of 1000 times bigger than yours. So what better work would your CEO have other than attending to me as a customer?

One day my MD pulled me aside, when I went to work in the morning. After the usual pleasantries, he asked me did I find this customer to be a pain in the rear. I said “SB, there are challenges. They are not used to working in this model. The VP is paranoid that his team may let the vendor go off in a tangent. So he’s pushing for everyone’s attention.” SB thought I was being polite and diplomatic. He told me, he was ready to pull the plug on this customer and let them go. He said look it’s not your fault or your teams – these guys are just making it too difficult.

Surprised, but felt happy that my MD was willing to let go off the business for the sake of his team not getting harassed. I told “SB thank you for your understanding. At this point, I have spent 6 months to get this customer. I am not going to quit now. Let’s stay put. I am hopeful in a few weeks things will settle down.” SB told me, “If that’s how you want it, I will support you. But if you find this becoming unbearable at any time – I am ready to pull the plug on them.”

In fact this support motivated me more to ensure that I had to retain this customer. My hunch proved right.

Two months later, things had settled down. We continued to service this customer for several years thereafter.

To me SB was truly a leader. A manager who was willing to work for his team. This is true people care, in my opinion.

When my manager made me his equal

I was looking after this new unit in this organization. It was challenging, as we were getting into a new market. My group was not that big. The business was relatively small compared to some of my peers, who had been running their groups for several years. When it was appraisal time, my manager WA stated that we had done a good job in challenging circumstances. However, we had to break out to be declared as outperforming. It was a fair assessment in my perspective.

Soon a couple of quarters later, there was an opening in the organization which was at the same level as my manager. This job would be reporting directly to my manager’s manager. My manager called me and said I should give it a fair try. I was pleasantly surprised to see him advise me to do that. I did apply for the job. I was interviewed along with a few others.

Then it was time for getting the current manager’s input. My manager had vehemently put forward my case. He felt I had all the potential to be in that level. He argued that my recent rating cannot be used as a valid input to make the decision – as I was getting to start up a new group, where as the others were having businesses that had run for years. He was persuasive enough, I take it. (I found this out later).  Soon enough I got promoted and a seat at the same table as my manager WA. [That’s when our manager, WA and mine – told me that WA was the biggest champion for my promotion.]

I have over the years seen most people enable promotion of people when they are two levels down to come one level below them. I have never ever seen people putting up the story for someone who’s reporting to them to become a peer!

To me WA was truly a leader. A manager who was going to look at his team member’s career first, rather than look at whether he becomes his peer. This is true people care.

This enabled me to ensure about six people in my career through the same process. I have either actively supported their movement to be a peer or have been instrumental to get them up to the slot. That’s my way of communicating my thank you to WA!

When I took a contra-position to my manager

I had a manager MB, who was quick on his feet. Would look at the macro picture to make a call. He was never into details. In a way we were complementary in our approaches. We were in a matrix organization. I was involved in a major outsourcing pursuit. Things were constantly changing and to somebody who looked at the pursuit from outside, it would appear to be an exercise in futility. In fact, I would state that I also felt that a significant part of it was an exercise in futility. However there was a part of it running into hundreds of millions of dollar which I thought was worthwhile to pursue. Given the size of this opportunity the pursuit was long drawn out, running into several quarters.

During one of our reviews MB expressed his perspective on this pursuit. It would not be worth it. I agreed that there were parts of the pursuit, which are not worth pursuing. I then tried to reason about the part of the business where I felt we had a good opportunity. He was extremely sceptical, pursuing any part of it. I wanted to continue the pursuit. He said Srini if you wish to do it, go ahead. I will not prevent you from doing it. Let’s discuss this in a couple of months from now. He was sure that I would also be concluding the same.

In the meanwhile we even went through an appraisal process. I was pleasantly surprised that he gave me top billing given the fact that I had taken a different stance than what he wanted. I had over the years, in principle, never questioned any of my manager’s appraisal rating.

The good part – my detailed investigation into the opportunity proved right. We started to actively pursue the part I was keen in, and the others were dropped. Sometime later we won the deal.

What was good was the fact that MB never operated as my manager. He operated almost as a peer. He allowed me to take and pursue the decision that I believed in (and he did not believe in). He always trusted my eye for the details.

To me MB was a true leader. When you are a senior pro, the way your manager respects your view point becomes very important. This is true people care in my opinion.

The 2% Masala effect

There’s a lot of talk about servant leadership. There’s a lot more noise about managers need to care for people.  Sometimes I see it as a cliché. I have seen many of them doing the superficial things – going out for a lunch with the team, or joining them in a pot-luck, putting up a fashion show by the managers. I call them superficial  – because they are all useful on the surface. But they really need to be followed through with the true things that help people make a career.

I believe in all the three instances I have narrated, my managers played a positive role in my career. To me these managers worked/ supported me – not necessarily on the days when there was sunshine. They did it in tough times.

When “someone” argues your case, isn’t that person working for you? When “someone” looks at you to be the decider on doing or exiting the business – does it feel like that person is working for you? When “someone” let you to override what they believe is right, don’t you feel you are the person-in-charge? In my case “that someone” happened to be my manager!

Sometimes employees look for outcome as the way of measuring a manager. I believe that’s inappropriate too. Take the case of my manager WA – what impacted me more was not the fact that I got promoted but the fact that he worked to get me a seat at the same table that he was in. This was helpful, when I could do it to some of the managers who worked for me. Employees tend to look at a bonus, promo or the increment as a definition of people care. I am not saying they are unimportant. They are after all the outcomes. But I would prefer a manager who enables you to reach the outcome by yourself than gets you the outcome you wanted.

What is the type of manager you would prefer? Whom would you call as a caring manager? What do you think of these 3 managers of mine? Do you have any interesting comments to make? Do you have any stories to share?