The Front Line Guide to Creating a Winning Management Style

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Chapter 6

Building Respect for Self, Team,

and Company

Management is the manipulation of variables,

some of which are people, for the goal-directed

release of energy toward cost-effective results.

f this definition is acceptable, then it’s obvious that there’s

more to the manager’s job than winning friends and influ-

encing people. If a manager cannot win with people, how-

ever, he or she had better be a truly exceptional performer.

It has been said about the late U.S. Navy Admiral Hyman

Rickover, widely regarded as the father of the nuclear subma-

rine, that there have been few people in positions of command

who exhibited a more disagreeable management style.

Rickover, however, was possessed of a powerful vision, and

was extremely effective at turning his vision into a reality.

That’s why he was able to recruit so many capable officers,

and why he was permitted to fend off retirement from the

Navy until he was in his 80s.

But for managers who don’t go on visionary quests or

who are not gifted with an exceptionally high IQ, a querulous

management style will spell career disaster. Such managers

move through the organization leaving a wake of ill feelings

and bad energy. They acquire reputations for being more

trouble than they are worth. In a turn-around or salvage

operation, such behavior might be excusable—but not in the

average work environment.

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