Trick or Treat Management

Some employees play a strange game every morning. They listen to how their manager says hello. They notice whether the office door is open or closed. They watch the expression on their face, the speed of their walk, maybe even how hard they put their coffee down. Then they make a calculation.

Which version of the boss did we get today?

On a good day, asking a question is perfectly fine. On another, the same question gets an irritated response. A mistake that was laughed off last Tuesday becomes a serious problem this Friday. An employee who brings up a concern might receive thoughtful advice one week and be told they should have handled it themselves the next. Welcome to Trick or Treat Management.

The problem is not that managers have emotions. Everyone does. Leaders have difficult mornings, personal problems, deadlines, pressure from customers, and stresses employees may know nothing about. Nobody should expect a manager to walk into work with exactly the same personality every day. The problem begins when employees have to continually adjust their behavior based on the manager’s mood.

Human beings are extremely good at detecting patterns. When an environment is predictable, we stop spending much energy thinking about it. When it becomes unpredictable, we pay much more attention. That is useful if you are walking through an unfamiliar neighborhood at night. It is less useful when you are trying to run an accounting department. An unpredictable manager creates a small decision before every interaction. Is now a good time to ask? Should I mention the problem? Is this worth bringing up? Will they be annoyed? Should I wait until tomorrow?

Multiply those tiny calculations across ten employees and hundreds of working days and something important begins to happen. Information slows down. Employees become more selective about what they tell their manager. Small problems wait. Questions go unasked. People start solving situations themselves, even when they probably should have involved someone else. From the manager’s perspective, everything may appear fine. That is what makes inconsistency particularly dangerous. People eventually learn how to work around it.

Strong leadership does not mean being endlessly cheerful or agreeable. In fact, some of the best managers are demanding. They hold people accountable, have difficult conversations, and make decisions employees do not always like. What makes them effective is that people generally know what to expect.

The standards do not dramatically change depending on the day. A mistake is handled according to its seriousness rather than the manager’s mood. Expectations are clear. Employees understand when they should escalate something and what will happen when they do.

Consistency creates a kind of organizational shorthand. People spend less time trying to interpret the leader and more time dealing with the actual work. For business owners, this becomes increasingly important as a company grows. An owner may have spent years personally setting the tone of the organization. Then the company reaches a size where five, ten, or twenty managers are creating their own smaller versions of that culture every day. At that point, the employee experience can vary enormously depending on who happens to be managing them.

This is where HR support and manager training become especially valuable. Many managers were promoted because they were excellent accountants, salespeople, technicians, clinicians, designers, or operators. Then one day they became responsible for performance conversations, conflict, leave requests, documentation, accommodations, discipline, and dozens of other situations they were never actually taught to manage. Without guidance, they improvise.

Good HR infrastructure gives managers something more reliable than instinct. Clear policies establish common expectations. Training helps managers understand how to respond to difficult situations. Experienced HR support gives them somewhere to turn before making an emotional decision that may become tomorrow’s employee relations problem.

For smaller and midsize companies, outsourcing HR can provide that structure without requiring every manager to become an employment expert. Managers still manage. They simply have better tools and experienced people behind them when the situation becomes complicated.

If you own or lead a company, ask yourself a slightly uncomfortable question: Do employees know what version of their manager they are going to get tomorrow?

Think beyond personality. Would two managers respond similarly to the same attendance issue? Would they handle a complaint with the same seriousness? Do employees know what requires approval? Are expectations consistent across departments? If the answers vary wildly depending on the manager, you may not have a people problem. You may have a management consistency problem.

Halloween is supposed to involve a little uncertainty. You knock on the door and wonder what you are going to get. Work should probably be different. Your employees shouldn’t have to say “trick or treat” every time they walk into their manager’s office.