After a year on the job, most of the managers thought of themselves as managers
and no longer as doers. In making the transition, they fi nally realized that
people management was the most important part of their job. One of Hill’s interviewees
summarized the lesson that had taken him a year to learn by saying, “As
many demands as managers have on their time, I think their primary responsibility
is people development. Not production, but people development.”60 Another
indication of how much their views had changed was that most of the managers
now regretted the rather heavy-handed approach they had used in their early
attempts to manage their subordinates. “I wasn’t good at managing . . . so I was
bossy like a fi rst-grade teacher.” “Now I see that I started out as a drill sergeant.
I was infl exible, just a lot of how-to’s.” By the end of the year, most of the managers
had abandoned their authoritarian approach for one based on communication,
listening, and positive reinforcement. One manager explained, “Last night at fi ve
I handed out an award in the boardroom. It was the fi rst time in his career that he
had [earned] $100,000, and I gave him a piece of glass [a small award] and said
I’d heard a rumor that somebody here just crossed over $100,000 and I said congratulations,
shook his hand, and walked away. It was not public in the sense that
I gathered everybody around. But I knew and he did too.”61
Finally, after beginning their year as managers in frustration, the managers came
to feel comfortable with their subordinates, with the demands of their jobs, and with
their emerging managerial styles. While being managers had made them acutely
aware of their limitations and their need to develop as people, it also provided them
with an unexpected reward of coaching and developing the people who worked for
them. One manager said, “It gives me the best feeling to see somebody do something
well after I have helped them. I get excited.” Another stated, “I realize now
that when I accepted the position of branch manager that it is truly an exciting
vocation. It is truly awesome, even at this level; it can be terribly challenging and
terribly exciting.”