The manager hero
Why this is a bad deal for the company and for the people in their team
I was working at Facebook (now Meta) and a skip level report — someone who reported to a manager in my team — asked to talk to me after having a promotion not go through. I will call this person Amanda.
The person started the conversation talking about the chat they had with their own managers. I will call this manager Robert.
Amanda told me how Robert said that despite how much he fought for them in the calibration and promotion committees, the promotion didn't happen and how Robert and her were devastated by the news.
I will pause now and acknowledge that dealing with employees who are disappointed at performance ratings or promotion decisions is really tough. Usually those are strong performers and this adds an extra layer of complexity. It is a tough part of the job, but one that is necessary, and one that we as a manager want to get right to do the best for the person, and also the best for the company.
What is the problem with Robert's chat with Amanda?
He really wants Amanda to like him, and to know how much of a hero he was trying to fight for what was right but look at him, poor hero now defeated. Amanda gets out of this conversation feeling bad for even asking Robert to go through such hardship for her on top of feeling bad for her promotion. She also leaves the chat without looking at the actual feedback that came back from the discussion, but somehow also feeling a sense of debt and being taken care of this this hero, her manager.
The problem here is that Robert is an agent of the company. Every manager is an agent of the company they work for. Pause for a moment and think about that: if you are a manager, you are an agent of your company.
This means the decisions of the company are also your own. If you cannot make peace with that, you probably should look at going back to an individual contributor role.
When Robert tells Amanda that he fought for her but lost, he is also implying that the company is wrongly rejecting Amanda's promotion request, and with that creating a potential liability for the company.
For Amanda, instead of getting out of the conversation with solid feedback she can work towards and nail the promotion in the next cycle from a place of agency, she is now distrusting her employer, feeling terrible about her experience, mistrusting everyone who work with her.
The only person being served in this dynamic is the manager. He believes that by doing what he is doing he is creating a closer relationship with Amanda, and creating more trust between Amanda and himself. This can be true in the short term, but in the long term Amanda will likely end up realizing the obvious: building a career that depends on a hero to save you and fight for you isn't a great idea. They will go work elsewhere, and everyone loses.
It isn't the most fun part of your job as a manager to communicate decisions, in particular the ones you do not make on your own. It is, nevertheless, a very important part of the job, and one that you should look into being profficient at.
In fact, the company decisions that you can live with as a manager is how you know you are working in a company that is a good fit for you. Even the decisions you disagree with likely should not dispespect your core values. If you do not know what your core values are, I strongly suggest you have a therapy session on it. It will shed a lot of light on your behaviors and reactions in relationships, being them professional or personal.
As a manager myself, I would both agree and disagree with the article here. There are some cases where "manager hero" happens, but there are some cases where the manager becomes the scapegoat (even PIPed) because the decision sometimes doesn't make sense.
Example (scapegoat): Someone was rejected for promotion because in the past (>1 year ago), the person (he/him) exhibited lower commitment and engagement (turn-off video during the team meeting, being passive, etc), but in the last year, he has changed and become a lot better. During calibration, someone in the senior management (Director level) put No vote with the reason being that the person has exhibited a lack of commitment and engagement in the past. The manager now have difficulty translating this feedback to the employee.
I believe making the calibration process attended by the person and making the feedback transparent (from: calibration committee -> Manager -> Employee, to: calibration committee -> employee) is the way to go. No fingerpointing, scapegoating, hero manager, or the like will happen because everybody owns the process.
This article consists a lot of shortcuts and simplifications. However it's good for a reflection about yourself as well as about the place you currently work in.
I do agree that if there is ANY person that pursues personal satisfaction rather than serving the purpose of the company is making a bad move. This is about any_single_one person serving the company no matter what position you have. So it's great to be aware of your intentions and reasons of your actions. But let's get deeper into it:
What if the 'master' of that committee or the group is making the decision not to promote someone
just to be a hero to someone else in the system, probably higher?
The shortcut you're making is that everything that happens over you is always right and if not - you cannot show it to the other people. I'd call that a hidden slavery, when you steer all the information with a single intention - to keep somebody at their job. In which case, longterm, everybody loses.
I was a witness of really many committee meetings and the decisions made there were 90% nonsense. yes - it was time to me to decide if I am at the right place. But it was not an reason for me to lie to people. When the feedback was reasonable I was able to change my mind and pass it forward, but if it was not - I was passing the truth. Not to be the hero! Only to let the people choose if that's what they want. Until this day many times I reflect if it was a good thing or bad, as many people were mad at the company, of course - but it was their decision to stay and be in it, not mine.
I have many other reactions and thoughts about this article but this is something I could share right away. good luck