People Management: Pros, Cons and Development Opportunities

Also part of a manager's daily duties is dealing with interruptions and distractions at work: Managers are 67% more likely than individual contributors to strongly agree they have a lot of interruptions at work.

When something goes wrong or an important decision needs to be made, managers must often drop what they are doing and get involved. Numerous distractions at work can affect their ability to focus and perform at high levels.

Not to mention, when they spend much of their day in meetings, their team members are left waiting to get direction, approvals and feedback from them.

Managers often feel "stuck in the middle" between managing their direct reports and reporting to their leaders. For example, leaders may require standing meetings to keep managers accountable, which can add days to a project's completion while individual contributors wait for approvals and feedback.

Achieving what is required by their boss and ensuring their team has what it needs to be successful can be challenging and can elevate job stress.

Like most stressful jobs, life as a manager can be emotionally and cognitively draining. Managers routinely make high-pressure, high-stakes decisions that have financial implications for their employer and employees.

They step in when a customer experience is in trouble. They deliver the bad news of budget cuts and downsizing. Even on an easy day, they are responsible for the livelihood, wellbeing and future of their employees.

They are in the spotlight all the time, constantly under scrutiny and always having to justify their actions, and the decisions they make may follow them for the rest of their career.

In short, being a manager involves considerable job stress. Managers are 27% more likely than individual contributors to strongly agree that they felt stress during a lot of their most recent workday.

For these reasons, managers are at significant risk of burnout. An unmanageably heavy workload and unreasonable time pressure are two of the top five predictors of burnout -- and they are all too common for managers.

Employee burnout is serious. Gallup's research has found that burnout has a direct effect on health, relationships, performance and career growth.

Getting clarity on work expectations, priorities and key partnerships so that managers can see a manageable path forward is critical. But it's also important to remember that managers are humans with feelings and may need numerous ways to manage stress.

A front-line manager may have an accounting issue, a computer crisis and a scheduling snafu, all in the same shift. And they are expected to be an expert at handling all of it.

They may have remarkable interpersonal skills but fall short on engaging their team because they are spending their afternoons studying spreadsheets.

Most managers become managers after being an exceptional individual contributor or by simply sticking around for a long time. But, as many new managers can attest, being a successful manager takes a completely different skill set than what's needed to work effectively in an individual role.

Many talented people who are highly successful employees are not talented as managers. A new manager may have been promoted because of their exceptional customer service skills, but now they are expected to develop, inspire and get work done through others.

Gallup has found that most employees do not have a natural aptitude for management, but they feel trapped because the management track is the only path to career advancement they can see -- the only way to increase pay or develop professionally.

Managers do their best, of course, but without additional support and training, they and their teams may suffer.

The personal consequences are severe when an organization positions successful individual contributors in a manager role without them having the right talents to succeed. When managers do not have the natural abilities and aptitude to be a manager, they tend to experience substantially lower engagement and performance while increasing risks of stress, frustration, turnover and burnout. And these issues are often passed on to the team they manage, causing engagement, performance and retention issues for everyone else.

Also, managers often are asked to do work that is outside their sphere of responsibility or capability. Managers are 46% less likely than individual contributors to strongly agree their work is delegated to them properly.

Many leaders assume managers will take care of various issues without being told expectations or receiving additional resources to support their efforts. Sometimes the expectations are clear but well outside the manager's strengths.

It's difficult to be strong at the vast array of things managers are asked to do. As a result, managers spend significantly less time than individual contributors doing what they do best.

In recent years, traditional performance management systems have been under fire. After investing significant resources and time, many organizations are realizing that their annual employee performance reviews do not improve performance -- and, in many cases, they actually hurt performance.

Astoundingly, managers report an even worse performance review experience than individual contributors. A mere 13% of individual contributors strongly agree their performance review inspires them to improve, but that percentage is a microscopic 8% for managers. They also find the performance review process to be less fair and less accurate than individual contributors do.

If there were a single argument against the traditional performance review, it would be this: Those administering performance reviews think less of the process than those receiving them.

When managers experience unfair and inaccurate performance reviews, they aren't receiving the critical feedback, coaching and recognition they need to thrive, hindering their effectiveness, development, and long-term career potential. Then managers are asked to repeat that same ineffective, frustrating process for those who report to them.

It's time for organizations to re-engineer their performance management systems. Modern performance management must shift to a performance development approach that equips, inspires and improves performance.

Gallup's analysis finds that performance reviews are not enough. Managers must be trained to have continual, meaningful performance conversations with their team members.

Having a voice that matters is a hallmark of being a manager. Managers have decision-making power on their teams; they get to call the shots and choose how to develop individuals into future stars.

Employees look to their manager as their coach and guide, as well as the gatekeeper to their destiny and development opportunities at an organization. Managers play the role of mentor, advice-giver and rescuer when trouble comes.

Beyond their one-on-one relationships with team members, managers are responsible for executing a business strategy. Naturally, managers have more decision-making control than individual contributors over establishing their own goals and strategies.

In fact, managers are twice as likely to strongly agree they are involved in setting goals for themselves and others. Having a voice and involvement in goal setting is an important aspect of creating goals that motivate employees.

It ensures that goals address the most important aspects of the job and inspire strong performance. Involving employees in this decision-making process also encourages them to take ownership of their goals.

Although managers have more ownership of their goals, there is a lot of room for improvement in this area. One of the most important responsibilities of a manager is to know what is achievable for themselves and their team.

Setting the right work expectations, making necessary adjustments and making wise -- albeit, sometimes bold -- decisions greatly influence whether managers and their teams succeed. As a result, leaders (managers of managers) need to give managers the decision-making power and support they need to set priorities that make sense for both them and the organization.

In addition to having a voice regarding their team, managers have access to organizational decision-makers, and their opinions with those influencers are valued more highly than those of individual contributors. Managers are included in more forms of organizational communication, and managers even receive more surveys from their organization than individual contributors do. And, managers are more likely than individual contributors to be asked about their organization's strategy and actions.

Not surprisingly, managers are 31% more likely to strongly agree that their opinions count. From having command over their team to having a voice in organizational decisions, managers are well-positioned to feel highly valued and confident about their status within the organization. They also tend to identify more strongly with the mission and vision of their organization because they have decision-making power and a voice in how things get done.

Managers have a greater say than individual contributors in the organization's strategy and goals. They also have greater autonomy in deciding how their work gets done. Managers are 21% more likely to strongly agree that they have the authority they need to do their job effectively.

Many people take for granted that managers can choose what to work on, how to work on it, when they will work on it and who they can ask to get involved.

Autonomy at work is a top predictor of performance. It empowers employees to approach complex tasks in a way that works best for them, and it creates intrinsic motivation by allowing employees to take ownership of their work. Of course, too much autonomy can be disorienting and confusing -- but, as a rule, the more control someone has over their work, the better they feel about it.

Autonomy has other benefits as well. It encourages creativity in problem-solving. Managers are more likely to have expectations for being creative or thinking of new ways to do things at work. They are also more likely to feel empowered to take risks that could lead to new products, services or solutions. An individual contributor may have ideas about how to, say, make customers happier or eliminate wasteful processes, but it's the manager who has the autonomy to test those ideas.

Ultimately, managers have the decision-making power to shape the direction of their work, to find new paths and to take action that makes those new paths successful. All of these abilities contribute to greater optimism about work, in general.

Managers are 36% more likely than individual contributors to strongly agree that their work is achievable.

Managers report spending an average of about five hours a day with other people, which is 26% more time in collaboration than the average individual contributor. Managers' time with coworkers includes everything from leading a brainstorming session to interviewing job candidates to having lunch with another manager.

Many workplaces are built with the intention of helping managers lead collaboration. Managers are about twice as likely to be on a matrixed team, which means they work with multiple teams and have multiple bosses. Matrixed teams are engineered to create an extremely collaborative work environment, which occurs when people are interdependent -- it's their job to do work in collaboration with one another.

This type of dynamic, ever-changing environment can be stimulating and motivating for managers. Something is always happening.

Opportunities to learn and grow are the top reason younger generations of employees are attracted to an organization. Millennials, in particular, desire development opportunities at work. Lack of opportunities for development and advancement is the top reason employees of all ages leave an organization. In other words, employee attraction and retention are strongly tied to personal growth, career development and seeing a positive future with an organization.

Often, organizations target these critical employee needs with a formal professional development program, engineered to help employees craft career-development goals, build skills and seek key experiences for a successful future.

Managers have a significant edge when it comes to formal professional development opportunities, as about two-thirds of managers report being in a professional development program. Additionally, managers are 24% more likely than individual contributors to have a mentor who helped them in the last week. Clearly, organizations see the benefit of building manager strengths.

And, a manager's edge in developmental opportunities does seem to make a difference: Managers are 19% more likely than individual contributors to strongly agree they have the skills to do their best work, and they are 17% more likely to strongly agree that their skills and experience are fully utilized in their organization.

Despite this special attention on management development, however, Gallup's data show that organizations have a long way to go when it comes to developing managers' skills and creating a clear career path for quality managers:

• Only slightly more than one-third of managers strongly agree they have had opportunities at work to learn and grow in the last year.
• Thirty-six percent of managers do not fully believe they have the skills they need to do their best work.
• Sixty-five percent of managers do not strongly agree that they understand how their performance affects their opportunities for promotion.

Leaders may think they are doing a lot, while managers feel that it isn't enough. Here are two important questions to ask:

• Are our development programs integrated enough with the realities of our workplace?
• Are managers experientially learning and growing on the job, and are they getting enough key experiences that build strong people leadership?

Many management development programs are positive experiences but don't affect the real experience of work, so it's important to examine your development program's effectiveness.

• Are our managers having frequent conversations with their supervisors about their future with the organization?
• Are our managers learning best practices and tips from their peers?

Experiences and relationships are everything when it comes to personal growth. Managers need to have an ongoing dialogue with their bosses about their future, their dreams and what they can be doing now to achieve higher performance.

Pay is a significant motivating factor for managers. In general, the average annual wages for U.S. individual contributor employees is significantly less than the salaries of managers, with ranges varying by roles and industries. Not surprisingly, managers are 13% more likely to report high levels of financial wellbeing.

But there's a deeper story when it comes to motivation. Employees complain the most about pay when they feel it is unfair and inaccurate. The solution is to ensure that employees believe their pay is within their control and understand how to influence future compensation.

Regular, transparent conversations about pay are key. Employees need to understand pay structures, philosophies and actions they can take to progress financially in their careers.

Managers seem to understand this context better than individual contributors. Managers are more likely than individual contributors to strongly agree that they know how their performance affects their pay. They also say they have greater autonomy and control over their work, and they are more likely to see a clear promotional path to higher earnings.

When people can see a reward clearly and feel empowered to attain it, they are naturally more motivated. Managers are 25% more likely to strongly agree that their "pay and incentives motivate me to achieve individually."

And there's another factor to consider: Managers are more likely to understand how their performance connects to team and organizational success -- they see how their personal achievement connects to the greater good. Managers are 21% more likely to strongly agree that they see how their own goals connect to the organization's goals. Not surprisingly, they are also more likely to strongly agree that their pay incentives motivate them to do what is best for the organization.

Higher pay makes being a manager an attractive proposition, but a manager's knowledge about the pay system and how to navigate it is perhaps even more inspiring than the money itself.