Productivity Blog

Managers have hard jobs, but that doesn't mean they're doing them especially well, according to i4cp's latest study. The majority of respondents lack confidence in management's effectiveness, with a little over half (53%) reporting that they rate overall management in their companies as "so-so" or worse.

Some respondents were downright harsh. About 15% said their managers were either "barely deserving the name 'management'" or just plain "hopeless."

To find out which kind of managers people prefer, i4cp asked participants to choose between easy-going and tough. More than a third (34%) opted for "easy-going" over "tough" (9%), but the majority didn't like either of those two options. Nearly 57% selected "other" and proceeded to put in their own idea of a preferred manager. It seems people want a mix of managerial qualities, with fairness, consistency, balance and flexibility being among the most widely cited characteristics.

So what qualities are most - and least - associated with managers? Asked to provide one "positive" word to describe managers, the top answer was "leadership," cited by 11%, followed by "supporting" (5.2%) and "mentor" (5%). On the "negative" side, the main choice, selected by 10% of respondents, was "micro-manage," followed by "controlling" at 5.4% and "selfish" at 3.2%.

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