Five Managerial Myths

Management is not about what you know, but about who you know. Familiar? This may be one of the most commonly used managerial myths, which will persist in countries like Croatia for a long time.

Not because the people in this country are more naive, but because in state-owned companies (and there are still plenty of them here) that is how positions are obtained. However, no matter how important networking is for the career of any manager, in the true private sector, who you know will never be more important than what you know. Except, of course, for the exception – family ties. This is just one of the managerial myths perpetuated by those who do not advance. Capital only knows logical behavior: those who create profit for the company advance, not godfathers and nephews, so who knows whom is less important. Of course, opportunities are mostly opened thanks to acquaintances and mutual trust, but in the cruel world of capitalism, those acquaintances are not gained at family lunches and trust is not born at parties. Acquaintances and trust are gained through working on joint projects and collaboration. As one of the more famous American presidents, Ronald Reagan, excellently put it, ‘surround yourself with the best people you can find, share authority, and do not interfere as long as the rules you have decided on are being followed.’

Not everything is as it seems It is therefore time to break other well-rooted managerial myths. One of the popular ones is that being a manager is a path to great earnings. True, those who successfully climb to the top have very attractive contracts and various benefits, but most managers do not earn astronomical sums. Logically, they have a higher salary than those they supervise, but in large corporations, being part of middle management is often not very appealing. On one hand, they are pressured by the demands of superiors, and on the other hand, by the needs of subordinates, without big money, but with long working hours and the constant ringing of phones, managers are certainly not in a privileged position. 

Dysfunctional managers are bad managers is another myth that stubbornly persists despite all evidence to the contrary. How can dysfunction be good for a company? Two words: Steve Jobs. One of the icons of modern vision and exceptional success was certainly not known for doing things the usual way. One story from the beginning of his career tells that he forced his partner Steve Wozniak to design a game in four days. Although Wozniak rightly claimed that such a project would take several months, Jobs just ‘stared’ at him and insisted that it be done in four days, which Wozniak ultimately did. It is easy to say that it was obviously a task that only required four days, but would it be the same to experience the story from Wozniak’s perspective? Having a superior who completely ignores what he is told and insists on a ridiculous deadline for a project? Thus, dysfunctional managers, no matter how much they drive everyone around them crazy, can be a blessing for the company. After all, the same Wozniak said of his former partner after his death that ‘people will probably remember him for the next hundred years as the best business leader of our time.’

Responsibility is – colleagues Myths abound. One of those that many believe is customer orientation. ‘The customer is always right’ is even written on the wall of the local bakery today, and the persistent insistence on customer orientation can mislead managers. Yes, they should be concerned that people in the company are customer-oriented, but their first responsibility is not there. Namely, managers do not contact clients or customers daily, but rather the people who work with them. That is why their first responsibility should be colleagues, not customers.
As Jack Welch, one of the most famous managers of the last century, excellently put it, ‘instilling confidence in people is the most important thing I can do because then they will act.’
Certainly not the last (because there are many, many more managerial myths), but one of the more dangerous ones is that managers must manage numbers. No matter how important they are, numbers always show what happened in the near or distant past, not what is currently happening or what will happen. Manipulating numbers to make it look like a manager is doing their job very successfully is neither a new nor a harmless phenomenon.

Managing activities Of course, numbers are important, but linking bonuses to just one type will inevitably lead to manipulation of that indicator. The first responsibility of managers is to manage activities. The numbers that will arise from them are important, but without quality context, they say very little about what is really happening.
In addition to these five managerial myths, many more could be listed, but even these indicate the traps one can fall into when thinking stereotypically about managing a company.
Some myths have been accepted even by those who have nothing to do with management – for example, myths about how much managers earn and how important connections and acquaintances are. Other myths, much more dangerous, are those that managers themselves believe while thinking about how they should perform their jobs or deciding about other managers. That is why it is important to embrace free thinking and understand that there is no recipe for a good manager. A good manager does not have to be stereotypical, they can defy all the rules. And a bad manager can seem brilliant on paper. In the end, only results and the way teams function count.