When the weak links in the chain of command do not allow the growth of junior managers

After long periods of university studies and, sometimes, postgraduate masters, young managers are eager to measure their skills, develop their ambitions and achieve their professional goals.

They often find jobs in already structured companies, in which the chain of command is long enough and the steps to climb it are not always trivial, the competition between colleagues is always heated.

A good test field to measure one's skills, develop skills and, at times, propose innovations that can benefit the company, through a new eye, not compromised by internal work habits.

The junior manager who has developed interesting solutions, perhaps to be further investigated, or has found inefficiencies to be solved to improve the work chain, will deal with his own manager on whom it depends.

He will have to investigate in detail the improvement process studied, or the defects of the line of work that he thinks could be implemented, or bring efficiencies in the circulation of activities, or suggesting changes in commercial, marketing, purchasing or other areas in which he has focused his interest.

Good ideas, in some companies, can weigh as much as negative ones, in the sense that they can annoy those who receive them, who must, in turn, propose to the chain of command above him.

In this case we are not analyzing the behavior of a manager who, confident in his skills and role, encourages junior managers to develop initiatives that can be noteworthy to be proposed in higher areas of the company.

Today we deal with the intermediate manager, who fears the need to convey initiatives other than his own routine, which may question the scope of work and control he has exercised, over time, in his workplace.

The transfer of the proposal from the junior manager to the intermediate manager normally takes place through a profound explanation of the details of the proposal, where often, listening to it, he wants to know the internal and external to the company, the tools necessary to manage the news, which business areas should touch and how it could change his work and his peace of mind.

A manager of this type listens, asks, creates a sort of complicity in the project, asks the junior manager for confidentiality on the project and maintains a relationship of false communication privilege with his subordinate.

Try to give it the importance that the proposer expects to have, qualifying his proposal and verbally gratifying him for the risk he has taken by exposing himself to possible errors personal.

At this point the manager, the weak link in the chain of command, having all the cards in hand and knowing exactly the proposal, feels able to develop a strategy that can work to his advantage.

If the proposal is indeed ameliorative, valid and important for the company, it will try to sell the idea, to its superiors, as its own initiative, born from a comparison, perhaps, with the work group he directs, through which he analyzed various opinions and elaborated, independently, the project that could bring a benefit to the company.

He could collect the gratification of his superiors and give a minimum recognition to the team that, with "so much care he directs", denying a space for discussion between the junior manager and the high-end company that decides.

The success will be of the manager first of all, of the working group in the second place, making the success of the group he directs fall upon himself.

If, otherwise, the idea is negative, wrong or not very productive, it will take into account the mistakes made by the junior manager, even if only in the elaboration of a proposal, so that it can assert, as a weapon of exchange, the errors of the past in subsequent periods.

This weak link in the chain of command is quite widespread in companies of a certain size, and juniors managers, before exposing themselves must try to get to know their superior and understand the implications of his character, sincerity and his confidence in managing human resources, without ulterior motives.

Automatic translation. We apologize for any inaccuracies. Original article in Italian.