Chapter 12 Manage Your Manager

Clarify expectations 

Be clear about what you expect from your manager 

Be clear about what your manager expects from you 

Work with, not against, your manager 

Meet regularly 

Remain loyal 

Put a stop to any interference in clinical issues 

Assist in decision making 

What if your manager is always too busy? 

Act, if an important decision has been made without your consultation 

Take immediate action 

Prevent it happening again 

Organisation-wide decisions 

Is it bullying? 

Act, if a change in another department has a knock-on effect in yours 

Coping is not taking action 

Don’t be pressurised into taking on extra work without funding 

Emergency situations 

Non-emergency situations 

Opening up extra beds 

Project work 

Work with your manager 

If you are doing extra work without funding, take action 

Keep the communication channels open 

Why some managers ‘micromanage’ 

Keep in constant contact 

Give feedback 

Write clear and timely reports 

Stage 1: Write a basic outline 

Stage 2: The introduction 

Stage 3: Background description 

Stage 4: Results/implementation 

Stage 5: Conclusion and recommendations 

Stage 6: Executive summary 

Know how to conduct a good investigation 

Make a provisional plan of action 

Review all the documentary evidence 

Interviews 

Prepare a written report 

A very important, but much neglected, part of being a good manager is building up a good working relationship with your own manager. This may not seem your foremost concern because you are focusing so much on building your own team. But if you make time for your manager, you will ensure that you:

are more likely to be involved in making important decisions that affect your team

have greater access to appropriate help to achieve your team’s goals

gain respect and are taken seriously

learn from your manager’s experiences (including mistakes)

keep well informed

have greater freedom and authority to act.

If you do not put time and effort into building up a good working relationship with your manager, you can become low on their priority list. This means you could end up having your concerns falling on deaf ears. You may find that they forget to give you information. You could even find that you end up arguing regularly and get labelled as the ‘difficult’ one.

Having a poor relationship with your manager does you no favours at all. It will hinder your progress. It doesn’t matter whether you like them or not; they have access to knowledge and information that you don’t. You should find the right ways of working with them to help achieve your goals.

Clarify expectations

Problems tend to arise if there is a lack of clarity between you about your tasks and responsibilities.

Be clear about what you expect from your manager

You do not have to become great friends with your manager, but you should understand their role and the demands placed on them. If you know what the organisation expects from your manager, then you will understand more readily why they work the way they do and why they make the decisions they do.

Your manager may have a different management style to you. They may be used to giving out orders and telling people what to do rather than involving the team in any decision making. This may not sit well with you. If that is the case, then say so, but don’t jump in with both feet. After all, their style may emanate from their own lack of confidence, so to ‘attack’ them may be counterproductive. Notwithstanding this, try to be clear about your expectations in that you want to be involved, not just informed. Ask your manager for regular feedback, both positive and negative, so that you can continuously improve in your work, rather than wait for your appraisal to find out how you are progressing.

Make sure you get your appraisal each year. Don’t wait for your manager to initiate the process. Write down what you want to discuss:

1. Your own self-assessment on how you think you are doing.

2. The objectives you feel are the priorities for your ward.

3. Your personal development needs in order to achieve those objectives.

Forward this information to your manager in preparation for your appraisal. Take control of the process, as you would hope your own staff would do for you. If the meeting is cancelled more than twice, let them know how it makes you feel. Unfortunately, there are still some senior managers who will regularly cancel appraisals (usually only because of disorganisation) without realising the unintended effect it can have on morale.

You need to understand what your manager’s own objectives are too. A good manager will ensure that your objectives reflect their own. In that way, you will know that you are both heading in the same direction. It would be detrimental if your objectives were totally different from those of your manager. That would only serve to create tension in your working relationship, not to mention the effect on practice.

Remember that your manager is only human. Sometimes, people are labelled as ‘poor’ managers because they do not conform to our expectations. Your manager may have become out of touch clinically, for example, but may still be particularly good at helping you to write complaint letters or getting more resources for your ward. Make sure you get the most from what they do well and try not to focus on any weaknesses.

Be clear about what your manager expects from you

Your manager will probably have managed a ward or department before taking promotion. Problems sometimes occur when they expect you to manage your ward in the same way that they did. One of the ways you can ensure that you have full control without interference is to keep your manager fully informed about what you are doing. Show what you are doing well. Be clear about the skills you have and those you want to improve upon. Your manager needs to believe in your abilities before they will trust you.

If your manager does not communicate their expectations clearly, then it is your responsibility to ask what is expected. Your manager may not have good management or support from their own manager; this may affect their own ability to manage you. You need to appreciate their position and accept that perhaps they need prompting to articulate their expectations. Make sure you have what your manager expects in terms of organisational objectives written down clearly during your appraisal. Always refer to these in anything that you do. If your manager comes to you with further projects, ask yourself if it relates to your original objectives. If it does not, question your manager’s expectations. Are they perhaps too high?

Try not to get into the habit of propping up a failing or struggling manager. Encourage them to get help and support from elsewhere. You cannot provide your manager with the same support that you give your team. It is not fair on you and you must let them know that.

Work with, not against, your manager

Just because someone is your manager it does not mean that they are perfect and know everything. Like you, they will also be learning from their experiences and mistakes. Don’t focus on their weaknesses; nobody is perfect. Focus on their strengths; they would not be in the job if they didn’t do something right.

Meet regularly

Have regular meetings to review your objectives. Take the initiative and set up these meetings if your manager does not already do so. The constant changes in health care, including the ever-changing contracts and performance indicators, may result in a need for you to change your priorities. Make sure any changes to priorities are discussed and objectives changed and agreed accordingly. Without keeping a check on them throughout the year, you could find you are going in a different direction to your manager.

Remain loyal

If you do not like the way your manager works, do something about it. Tell your manager how you feel and suggest ways of changing their approach. Don’t complain to others about their way of working. You must be seen to be working on the side of your manager at all times. Disloyal people can never be trusted by both their managers and employees alike. A reputation for disloyalty can be hard to dispel.

Put a stop to any interference in clinical issues

If you feel your manager is interfering too much in clinical issues, it can indicate that they do not have enough confidence in your abilities. You need to ask yourself why. Are you showing them what a good job you do or are you leaving it up to them to find out? Managers do not have time to constantly observe their employees. Take the initiative; keep them abreast of what you do well and any achievements regularly. They will appreciate more of what you do, rather than what you don’t do.

Some managers are unable to let go of the clinical side, particularly if they have been promoted internally. Sometimes this means they do not have confidence in their more senior role and are taking refuge in what they do know. The key in this situation is to give consistent positive feedback on what they are doing well; then intersperse this with some feedback about how their additional involvement on the clinical side is affecting you and your team in a non-productive way.

Assist in decision making

Some managers find it difficult to decide what to do when confronted with a problem, particularly when clinical skills have become ‘rusty’. The best thing you can do in this situation is to help them by outlining the possible solutions, making it clear to them which one you feel is the most suited at that time. You may need to follow this up with clear directions on the steps that need to be taken. Remember always to support them in any decision they make, including the ‘fall-out’ should it be the wrong decision. Nobody ever wants to hear the phrase ‘I told you so’ or ‘It was the manager’s decision, not mine’.

What if your manager is always too busy?

Being permanently busy does not mean that more work is getting done. It can sometimes mean the person is not in control of their workload. If your manager is busy and not in control, it will probably affect your work too. Meeting with your manager to confirm what you have defined as your workload (as outlined in Ch. 2) may help them to see that it would be a good idea for them to do the same exercise.

Every time your manager comes to you saying, ‘We have to do this …’ ( e.g. another audit, a new procedure or a further reduction in staffing levels), ask yourself three very important questions:

1. ‘Do we have to do this, or do we choose to do this?’ (if you do not choose to do it, you are not in control), then:

2. ‘If we choose not to do this, what will the consequences be?’

3. ‘If we choose to do this, how much time and resources will it take, and which of our current tasks will we discontinue in order to make time for the new more important task?’

Act, if an important decision has been made without your consultation

If any important changes need to be made at work, everyone should be consulted. You should be given the chance to say what you think and your manager should genuinely listen, consider and respond to your views.

Take immediate action

Don’t always blame others if you were left out from a decision-making process; you have to shoulder some of the responsibility. Ask yourself why you were not included. Don’t get angry, don’t procrastinate and don’t bottle it up. Go and speak to your manager before you speak to anyone else. Remain calm and ask why you were not consulted. They may have simply forgotten.

If you have views or alternative solutions, then let them know. If you feel there will be serious consequences which may not have been considered, make these very clear. Follow up your discussion with an e-mail confirming what you discussed. You can address the e-mail to any others involved in the decision-making process, so that they may also consider your views, but if you do, you should consider your wording very carefully. Avoid giving the impression that you are being disloyal to your manager. Ultimately you may not be able to change the decision made, but it helps if your views are made clear and considered.

Prevent it happening again

Treat this as a learning experience, and take action to reduce the risk of it happening again. If you find that your manager genuinely forgot to include you or did not realise the importance of involving you, then it is clear that you have not been making enough effort to communicate with them on a regular basis. Make sure you do so in future.

Don’t just contact your manager when you have a problem or when they call a meeting. Make the effort to see your line manager regularly to update them on current issues. Keep them informed of everything you are doing. It is also important to keep them up-to-date with any projects or work that have been delegated to you.

Nurses are generally not good at promoting themselves, but if you do not promote your knowledge and expertise, how else is your manager going to know? It is not sufficient to say that it’s their job to find out. It’s also your job to let them know and get yourself involved in activities, meetings and projects in which your knowledge and expertise are required.

Organisation-wide decisions

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Related

Related posts:

1. Manage Your Time
2. Manage Difficult Situations
3. Manage Staff Performance
4. Look After Yourself

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