What exactly is a bully boss?  A few simple questions will help you to answer that.

1. Do you as a manager blame everyone else for your departments failures?

2. Do you threaten to fire or demote people regularly?

3. Do you yell and scream at your staff on a regular basis whether it’s justified or not?

4. Do you inconsistently enforce company rules when it might impact negatively on your favourite people or yourself?

5. Do you belittle your staff in front of each other (once again whether it’s justified or not)?

If you answered YES to any of these questions, then yes, sadly, you are a bully boss. You are one of those managers who cause nearly 40% of staff grief in the workplace. The sad part is too that many managers don’t really realize that they are doing it or that’s what they really are, a bully. Many confuse being strict and diligent in their management role as being an effective manager but in reality, what they are being is a bully boss.

I have known many many managers who fell into this category but they wouldn’t get I through their heads that there’s a difference in being a great manager and being a bully. An example that comes into my mind is one of a store manager I once worked with. One of the sales staff was struggling a bit with her sales figures one month. It was a couple of weeks from Christmas so what he suggested for her to do was to go to the female clothing store next door and get into a short mini skirt and a skimpy red top which showed a lot of cleavage and stand in front of the store and hand out brochures trying to get people to come into the store. Not only that, he went into the store with her and paid for her little outfit. When I saw her, my eyes nearly popped out of my head. Now, she was a beautiful girl and everything but my god, she looked like a hooker selling mobile phones. I went up to her and asked her what was going on and she started crying as she felt humiliated by this so called manager and she was told that if she didn’t do this, she would be fired for poor performance. I told her to go and get changed. When the manager saw what I did, he was furious and started to yell at me in the store with many customers inside. I off course told him what he did was not only illegal but unethical and I reported him. Needless to say, he was himself sacked not long after that and rightly so. The problem was that she sued the company because of his actions.

The long and short of it is this. You as  a manager are in a position of authority. You have an obligation to your company to perform but, you also have an obligation to your staff to treat them with dignity and the respect they deserve. For poor performance your company will not take you to court, but for bullying your staff in any shape of form, the staff member just might. By being a bully boss, it could cost your company a truck load of money and wasted time, but ultimately it could cost you your job. Is it worth it? If you think it is, then management is certainly not a role you should be in.

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One company I worked for many years ago had a managers conference once a year held at a resort somewhere on the sunny Gold Coast In Queensland Australia.  It was three to four days away from the work environment where we had all sorts of team building activities, team building exercises, forums, informational seminars as well as the usual company hoo ha about how much better we are than our competitors. At the end of it all, on the last night usually, they threw a big ball with a fancy dress theme each year. After the four days with all the teamwork activities nearly every day, we all went home feeling great, relaxed and eager to get back into the job with renewed enthusiasm. I learned things about people I worked with everyday that I didn’t even know which helped me be more tolerant and patient with them. This was all because of the team building activities that we did as well as the relaxed atmosphere over lunch and dinner. By the end of it, we all wanted to work like a team and make things better at when we got back to work. The thing is though, if you are going to undertake any form of teamwork activities, you should try and make them as regular as possible without becoming a total bore or a chore for your staff.

Some of the simple team building exercises that we did ranged from things like obstacle courses where the stronger ones were encouraged to help get their team mates through the course. It made us think like a unit and not as 10 or 20 individuals. There were problem solving activities where you had to solve puzzles as a team and work out the clues to get to the prize. There were sessions where it was like a giant think tank and everyone had to contribute an idea or two on how to make something better in the company. There are truck loads of team building activities out there that you could try with your team. For a couple of websites to get you started go to wilderdom.com and businessballs.com.

Team  building activities should not confuse team members . This often happens when the facilitator isn’t familiar with the activity or he doesn’t have the necessary skills to pull it off. When in doubt, get a professional in. The last thing you want to do is to embarrass one of your team members because of a badly thought out team building activity.

Using team building activities can be a fun way to develop a strong teamwork environment. It’s just one way off course but while they can be a fun thing to do, they also serve a useful purpose. If you are having trouble with your staffs morale for whatever reason, try out some teamwork activities and see what a difference they can make in your team.

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There can also be different levels of supervisors depending on the size of the company. For example, a first level supervisor usually would supervise entry level employees while a middle manager would supervise first level supervisors.  All in all though, a supervisor is still a manager and to me, it’s always just been a play on words. I have been officially both in different organizations and apart from the salary and the title, the responsibilities are nearly the same.

So what does a supervisor do?  To supervise a group of employees a supervisor has to use basic management skills such as meeting management, problem solving, planning, delegation, decision making, organizing teams and departments to run efficiently, hiring new employees and training new employees. They also have to be able to manage their teams performance, set goals and give them feedback, addressing poor performance issues and sometimes even to fire people. A supervisor is also expected to enforce company policies and procedures.

So in a nutshell, a supervisor is still a manager but does not have the title of a ‘manager’. He is still expected to perform basic management functions but is only responsible for the employees under him. Being promoted to a supervisor is a great way to get into the world of management and get a real sense of what management is all about without the higher pressures of middle or upper management roles.

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It says that someone in management should be focused on more of a leadership type role whereby they communicate the goals and the visions of the company. As well as that, they are supposed to guide others so that they can reach those goals themselves. It also implies more of a hands on role for a manager which in my opinion, is a good thing. Too many times people who get promoted into some sort of a management role, forget where they come from and start treating people differently and all of a sudden develop different rules with which to work by. No matter how you define what the role of a manager is, there are still those four basic functions that need to be addressed as a manager.

1. Planning

This includes setting objectives, goals,what resources are needed, who does what and what time frame is acceptable for the task or tasks.  When we talk about planning we mean planning for advertising, planning sales goals, staff planning, promotional planning and the like.

2. Leading

The best way to lead is by example and the way to do that is to set a clear  direction in which you want people to follow you in. In other words, establish a strategic direction which includes the vision, the values and the goals you want to achieve.

3. Organizing Your Resources

Sometimes this is easier said than done. To organize your resources simply means to make sure you have everything in place to achieve your goals. That means all your back office functions like a proper filing system, a reporting system, any stock you might need if you are in sales, make sure all the proper procedures are in place so that all paperwork can get processed properly according to your companies requirements and so on.

4. Controlling and Coordinating

This is where a lot of new managers come unstuck. If you are in charge of a sales force for example, there is only one of you and perhaps as many as 20 sales people. You have to make sure that you know what’s what and and who is where. You as the manager are usually far out numbered by your sale people so it is important that you are in control of everything. This means everything from where your sales people are right down to monitoring the systems that you have for getting the job done. You need to be across everything that goes on in your department but it does not mean that you have to do it all yourself. You can delegate certain responsibilities to others but you need to be in control of them so that they do their jobs which in turn means that you will reach your objective.

No matter how you define what a manager is, the role of a manager is usually the same. A manager is there to plan, lead, organize and control or coordinate their department. You could add some subcategories to all of those functions but essentially, a manager is there to make sure that the job gets done.

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In one company I had the ‘pleasure’ of working, 90% of the sales people were young good looking blond females. The ones that were male, were also young, fit cover models. I felt like an ugly duckling. The manager who hired all this staff certainly wasn’t thinking with what we between his ears.  I have nothing against young workers and giving them a go but I would rather have a bit of experience in my sales team than just looks. Every young worker needs a break and I get that but when nearly the whole sales team is made up with workers like that, then there’s a huge problem just waiting to raise its ugly head.

The first thing I did was to sift out all the ones who clearly had no brains at all for the job. It didn’t take long. Then I went on a recruiting campaign and the oldest staff member I hired was in his late 60′s who needed the break. He had all the sales experience I needed and he was over the moon when I called him back and told him he has the position. And he worked out really well.

Just recently, I decided I wanted to get back into the telecommunications industry here in Australia. I applied for a few positions with the major teleco’s and had no problem getting interviews. The thing that peeved me off was all these young recruiters who had such a high and mighty attitude when they see you walk through the door and you aren’t as young as they hoped you were. They were all generally unprofessional, disinterested and never bothered to return phone calls. The interviews I did manage to go on through them was just as bad with the managers all being younger than me and thinking they all know the recipe to sales success in their stores. I asked one arrogant manager what he thought it was and he said that it’s a young and vibrant store atmosphere. I asked him what the demographic was in his store and he said it was mainly older pensioner types. Hardly a great match so I knew he was full of crap. I was just too old for what he had in mind. Who knows, maybe he had issues of  inferiority around someone who clearly has had more experience than him in the business.

Unfortunately, my foray into the workforce again wasn’t a pleasant one at all. I decided to stay doing what I’m doing. Age discrimination in this country happens a lot as I’m sure it does all over the world. It’s a great shame really as our older workers offer a wealth of knowledge and experience. The next time you are in a recruitment phase, do consider hiring an older worker over a younger worker. You might be surprised as to the higher success rate you will have with them working out. Older workers generally pick their companies wisely and have no intentions of job hoping like younger workers do when a better opportunity comes up. You might just be pleasantly surprised.

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The first thing is that to be a great sales manager, patience is your greatest asset. Everyone knows that in business there are ups and downs, good days and bad days, good months and bad months etc. A great sales manager is able to use the information that he has and then put a strategy together to better the results next time. This off course takes time and a lot of patience. A great sales manager also realizes that quality work over a period of time is better than a gung ho attitude and then just petering out.

I have known over the years people who were good managers but they were never on their way to being great because they had the attitude that since they were in management positions for years, that they knew everything there was to know about management. Wrong! A great sales manager realizes that training is an investment and that we should never cease to learn something new. That extends to their staff as well. Knowledge is power and the more power you have, the more successful you will become. Never stop learning and for that matter, never stop training your staff either.

A great sales manager also has great clarity and focus on what he’s trying to achieve. Simply put, great sales managers don’t get distracted by what’s going on around them. I tried not to when I was a sales manager. I knew I had a job to do and I did whatever I could to advance to my goal which in my case was to meet budget every month.

Another thing to keep in mind is that you need to know the processes involved in getting to your goal. That simply means know all the steps it takes to get that sale and after that off course, know all the back office procedures your company requires so that everything proceeds smoothly. I always had trouble when the sales guys didn’t follow proper procedures as it wasted valuable time to track down the details of a sale because it got lost in the system somewhere. What a waste of time. But, if you know all the proper procedures, you will probably have to hammer it into your sales team as generally speaking, sales guys are not paper work guys. So it’s up to you to train them as it will make your job easier.

Last but by no means least, a great sales manager will always set goals for himself as well as his sales team. The way I used to set goals was to break it up into smaller pieces. In other words, I had daily, weekly and off course monthly goals. It was easier to keep a track of things and to see if we were on target for the month that way. My sales guys had to report to me at the end of the day on a daily basis so I knew exactly how we were tracking for the month. I could then take appropriate action if we were falling behind such as do more training with them, have a quick sales meeting to identify what we could do to improve and things like that.

The bottom line is that to become a great sales manager, you have to be organized, patient, know your processes and not be scared to learn new things along the way even if you think your ways are the best ways. There is always a better way. You just have to leave your mind open when you find it. By following some of these simple suggestions, ‘near enough’ will certainly not be ‘good enough’ for you anymore.

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Thanks to everyones help and your patience as well in this rather frustrating and very annoying time.

Cheers

Andrew Bailey

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Theodore Roosevelt

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Harold S. Geneen

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PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… Rank: wait… Traffic: wait… Price: wait… C: wait…

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