by meglesnick | Apr 13, 2026 | Culture, Leadership, Management, Talent, Uncategorized
Understanding Inconsistent Management
When you think about inconsistent management, you could look at it two ways. One is about inconsistency in the way that you treat individuals and the other is how managers across an organization can be inconsistent with their methods.
I’d like to start this off with saying that I believe in some inconsistency, meaning you don’t have to treat every employee or peer (or supervisor for that matter) exactly equal. You don’t and quite honestly you can’t. This is where business and management is more of an art and there is some grey. My point in this area is that there are people who thrive when managed differently in terms of items like how they learn best, what types of opportunities are they searching, do they prefer to have closer interactions with their co-workers, what type of communication style works best for them, do they like public or private recognition, etc. As you can tell, it isn’t one size fits at all.
Where Inconsistency Becomes a Problem
But, if you are cognizant of what employees prefer and you do your best to mind that for one person, you need to do that for everyone else on your team. If you don’t, you ARE being inconsistent. Managers are often concerned they’ll be labeled as having favorites. Some individuals are easier to get to know or even easier to recognize or promote, which doesn’t mean that we should all take the easy route, but it does mean that is a fact and a good hands-on leader will do their best to draw the most out of all employees or peers.
The important part is to do the same for everyone. You have regular one on ones with everyone you supervise, you take the time to give the entire group actionable feedback regularly, you work with everyone on their short and long-term goals. You take the role of manager seriously and remove barriers for all employees, help them solve problems, ask their opinions on items that they specialize in and give all of them the opportunities to advance, when possible.
Does this mean that you will have the exact same impact on each person? Absolutely not. Some individuals want or need this more than others and that is OK. You are trying your best for everyone, even with limited time and resources.
If you don’t supervise anyone, you can still treat others with consistency. Again, it doesn’t mean you have to use the same conversation starters for everyone in your group or offer help to every single person in your department. It means that you have positive intent for everyone, and you attempt to be a thoughtful, engaged peer to all, even the co-worker who doesn’t talk to you as much or the one you think is interested in taking over your job.
Organizational Consistency and Moving Forward
As for the other consistency point, if you go up a skosh to look at the organization more globally, often you’ll see the way that a department or division manager supervises their team can be quite a bit different from another manager. In fact, that’s normally the case as we are all human, and we don’t have the exact same strengths and weaknesses as each other. But it may mean more to you when items like promotions or benefits seem to favor other groups. This can often feel uncomfortable and certainly unfair.
Understanding that people have their own styles and ways of operating makes it easier to accept that there are differences. However, true inconsistency points to a lack of communication, training and robust systems. If you are part of an organization where this occurs, you can try to be part of the solution, rather than only pointing out the issues. It can be tough to navigate but certainly worthwhile. It’s essential in relationships to foster predictability and alignment.
by meglesnick | Mar 2, 2026 | Culture, Leadership, Management, Talent, Uncategorized
In my last blog post, I wrote about why it’s important to help those you supervise to build an internal network for their own development and also to increase collaboration within the workplace. I have an example which could illustrate this concept more fully.
When Expertise Isn’t Enough: The Challenge of Working Without a Network
I had an employee report to me in an odd position. She was the only project manager in our company as we were small and growing. Lots of people had interest in project management but she had been formally trained and working in the field for years. She came in to try to help out with a large and cumbersome project that had merit but was lagging in progress. As I was very supportive of the hire, our president decided I would be her manager.
She had a lot of great skills but didn’t know anyone and while most people at the company were fairly friendly, they stuck together in their departments. Salespeople talked to other salespeople. The financial team hung out together. My marketing group was a little more adventurous but that didn’t really help the project manager as she worked with everyone in the company a bit, but not any one group a lot.
Influence Is Built, Not Assigned: Helping Connections Take Root
I noticed that she was having some trouble getting answers or understanding the process of how the company worked. Even though I was helpful and the president was behind her, she was floundering a bit as she had no network. And, at the point that I interceded, she really didn’t see the point of why she needed one. People just needed to listen to her!
I think we’ve all been there where we wished we had more influence. It’s not easy to build it quickly and it doesn’t come only from a title or from our expectations. Co-workers need to want to spend time with you or know what they will get out of it. Can you make my life easier? My job less painful? Can you provide me with less to do, not more to do? One of the problems that the project manager had was she was assigning work to people with little regard for what they actually had on their plate and she didn’t have a great sense of how everything got done.
Since I had worked there for a few years, I knew the players and how things worked. I was able to help her make sense of the process flowed there, some of it being fairly productive and other parts of it a bit archaic. But all of it was reality and there were those individuals who could help her greatly and there were those who probably wouldn’t be as open to change.
As her manager, I listened to what she wanted to achieve and gave her insights into some staff members who held positions more like her. I introduced her to the ISO quality committee who were very interested in good process and making things better within the company. She found an inter-departmental group who she felt like she belonged to, which helped.
I also asked her to share her knowledge with several employees who wanted to know about project management. We had an informal mentoring team and she worked with staff in all different areas who started speaking the same language that she did and infiltrated all departments so if she needed someone to participate, then she now could readily find a volunteer.
In addition, she spoke at a couple of our monthly all staff meetings. I coached her to not give everyone the benefit of her giant Smart Sheet library but instead to give a short overview of her latest projects, the timeline and the results, including kudos to those who had surpassed their goals.
The Leadership Ripple Effect: How Internal Networks Strengthen Everyone
In less than a year, she was well established at the company and was looked to as a leader within the organization. The president was trying to determine if she should run her own PMO or if project managers should live within technical departments. It was definitely a success story for her.
And it was for me and the company as well. Honestly, she didn’t stay all that long as she had other ambitions to strike from her list, but she did positively touch a number of people in the company and made it easier for our president to figure out his direction.
The point is though that helping facilitate others to find their own networks is a positive method to show true leadership and make others and your company better and more cohesive.
by meglesnick | Jan 20, 2026 | Culture, Leadership, Management, Talent, Uncategorized
There are many jobs within the job of being a manager. You’re expected to teach, train, coach, mentor, support, explain, understand, give, direct, instruct, etc. It can be a lot, especially when you have multiple direct reports plus your own full-time job, as many companies add on management to an already at capacity individual.
The Many Hats of Management
But one part of the job that doesn’t get a lot of press is how to help your direct reports become known at the company on their own. You can do this in a variety of ways, by providing them internal recognition, by giving your boss insight to their performance, by promoting them at team meetings, by giving them the opportunity to lead other types of efforts, etc. These are all great ways of providing positive exposure while allowing others to see your employee’s talents.
Visibility Matters: Helping Employees Be Seen
Another idea is to help them figure out who to have as a professional network within the company and outside for them to do their jobs better and even potentially get promoted. This can be risky for some leaders as this could mean they will leave you and your department. This individual who you’ve come to depend on and have poured a lot of effort into may take these hard-won skills and go, maybe within the company or worse, leave as a highly prized recruit for someone else.
Letting Go of Fear: Networking, Growth, and Leadership Ego
GULP – that isn’t what you want, or is it? There are no guarantees that any of us will stay anywhere and we certainly don’t owe it to our bosses to stay put and not learn more or move up. You need to remember that this isn’t about you, not really. A good leader does all the verbs (teach, train, mentor…) because that is what you are supposed to do and if you’re fortunate enough to work with someone who really gets it, soaks it in and asks for more. Well, then they could leave their current position or even – surpass you! Can your ego take it?
I hope so, because helping employees build a good network is another way of providing them with more tools and these tools will greatly help them. They’ll help you too as employees who have positive workplace relationships will make sure that the department’s work gets done more efficiently and with more collaboration.
How do you do it? It isn’t hard really if you have regular conversations with those you supervise. If you are a little higher up in the organization, or have been there longer, or even are observant about what’s going on and who’s doing it, you can help guide your employees towards others who they can commiserate with, learn from and in general count on.
Helping your direct reports network and find their own spot within the organization is a great way to manage and mentor. While it certainly benefits employee growth and development, you can also increase your leadership expertise. It also benefits the organization and its health!
by meglesnick | Jul 14, 2025 | Culture, Management, Strategy, Talent
It’s hard to combat certain organizational culture issues. One of the hardest is the us vs. them mentality which can play out in a few different scenarios. This mindset is based on the idea that a group of any type can get when they feel as though others have it “better” in some way than they do. It starts off innocently, especially when we want a group to feel empowered together. Sometimes inadvertently we can feed into it with team building exercises. But if you see this in your team, you want to get rid of it as soon as you can because it’s toxic and it can cause lots of issues, like low morale, inconsistent performance and a lack of collaboration.
It can be found in many types of places and here are some examples to help you understand it better.
Where “Us vs. Them” Shows Up
1. Within Departments
If your department is a large enough one, there are normally staff who specialize in certain functions. For instance, in the marketing department, you could have the digital marketers, the creative team, the project managers, etc. Or you could get divided up by your vertical market or by internal product lines, whatever the case, there are divisions within the department.
There can be times that a marketing leader may try to stoke some competition between the groups so he/she could set up a contest to see which one is the most productive or gets the most recognition. If the groups are functional and work well together, this can be a way to boost teamwork within a division. But if not, it can also be a way to pit department members against each other and reinforce bad behavior. Even without a contest, oftentimes people who are more alike prefer to stick together and may have an issue with those who are different, even if they share the same boss.
2. Between Departments
There are also issues with us vs. them with two departments who are often supposed to work together but because of a variety of reasons, they have trouble doing so. Groups can have disparate goals which can make our working relationships difficult. But it isn’t only the difference in goals that can be an issue. It can be the fact that you have different work styles, leaders, priorities and communication skills.
I have worked in many corporate marketing departments, and I can tell you firsthand, the huge differences between how the sales and the marketing teams work at most places. It is very easy for either group to talk trash about the other one as they seriously don’t understand what they do on a daily basis or why they think so differently.
3. Internal Staff vs. Customers
You see the us vs. them between the internal staff at an organization and their customers. If this is a dysfunctional workplace, the staff is encouraged to have more of an adversarial relationship with the client, meaning the company isn’t trying to solve customer issues or make their life easier.
Instead, you want to sell them on your product or service and if the customer isn’t happy, it’s OK because there will be others. Most companies aren’t quite that black and white about the subject, but we’ve all felt that way when we’ve tried to get help. As a customer, you know when the staff person is “on your side” rather than going through the motions and not solving any issues.
4. Internal Teams vs. Vendors
There can be an us vs. them when an organization is working with a vendor. You’ll see it when the internal team makes a lot of disparaging comments about the team at a vendor, usually to assert power. The reason this isn’t a good dynamic is that vendors will do a better job and with more effort for the organizations who are easy to work with and who give them the information that they need. If there is any sort of simmering murky issues, those problems can get in the way of working together in a positive manner. It can impact lots of areas, including deadlines and quality.
5. Leadership vs. the Broader Organization
Another common us vs. them is felt both ways in the leadership team and the rest of the organization. The leadership team may feel that they are supposed to receive different privileges as they are the ones setting the strategy for the organization. And maybe they do get more or better benefits as their skill set may allow them to find those privileges elsewhere if they don’t get it at their current place of employment.
But making others feel less important is never a good way to lead. And, from the other perspective, workers at a company may feel like they are the true stewards of a company, performing the most important work valued by the customer. They may not share with the leadership team as they don’t feel as though they either want to know the information or that they would do anything particularly responsible with it so why bother?
Why It Matters
There are other instances of us vs. them in a company but these are some good starting places to look if you want to evaluate your organization. But why does it matter? There is something to be said about people feeling a sense of camaraderie with others and everyone isn’t always going to be one big happy family. Right?
While I acknowledge that people will gravitate towards others they are like and are comfortable with, it shouldn’t be to the exclusion of another group. If that occurs, you can cause long lasting issues that have an impact on important metrics like employee and customer satisfaction, productivity measurements and even revenue or profit goals.
You also adversely impact important items like communication and collaboration. If individuals aren’t talking regularly to a group that they need to, then neither side gets the benefit of the knowledge, plus they won’t be working together on solving problems, finding root causes, determining innovative methods, etc.
The Bigger Picture
It sounds like a small problem and for some places, it probably is if you have a pocket of individuals here or there who have a bit of a martyr complex. But if it runs rampant throughout the organization, this “us vs. them” mindset can derail an organization’s goals – quickly and with little effort.
by meglesnick | Feb 21, 2025 | Culture, Management, Talent, Uncategorized
But what is the answer? I’ll caveat this for a moment. Not every single role in a company can be done on a remote basis. I recognize that companies prefer to have rules that apply to everyone, but in this case, I think that’s difficult. There are times when there are technology, equipment or operational issues that preclude not working within an office. Putting those aside, what are the main reasons why companies are against WFH policies?
1. Collaboration
I’ve heard this one a million times. If only everyone was in the office together, then we would work together so much more cohesively. Really? I’ve worked in many offices when a brainstorming occurs in-person and everyone stares at each other or continues answering emails. Just because you’re all in the same room doesn’t mean that people are more engaged.
2. People goof off when they work from home
I got news for you. People goof off when they work in an office, especially in cubicle environments. We can all hear each other and it’s super easy to get drawn into a conversation about kids, weather, sports, cooking, you name it! Also, online shopping, talking on personal calls, checking your social media, etc. can easily be done in the office or your home office.
3. Productivity
While this is related to the point above, I think it speaks to the “control” issue that a lot of managers possess. If I can’t see you, then how do I know you’re working? Well, you can help by understanding staff workloads and having a good sense of what can get done, especially balancing competing priorities and excessive meeting loads.
Many individuals who write on this topic promote hybrid work but that can be tough as well as who wants to go into the office on Friday and be by yourself for a Zoom meeting. Companies often say that you need to come in 2 (or 3) days per week, but teams don’t always work with each other to be in the office at the same time or are unable because of other responsibilities or restrictions.
Trust and Management
Bottom line to me is trust and management. If you trust the people on your staff are responsible and normally want to try their hardest, you can treat them as adults and let them determine when they need to come into the office. You do need to manage workloads and production, but you should be doing that whether the workplace is fully in the office, hybrid or remote.
Lastly, there are a lot of other potential factors, such as companies may have long-term leases, so they want to utilize the office space appropriately. Or organizations may want to make sure that new hires meet and form an in-person relationship with coworkers both to help them feel more comfortable and be on-boarded well. In addition, some individuals actively dislike working from home and for them, it is good to have an option.
How do you feel about working from home? Does it work well for you and why?
by meglesnick | Feb 4, 2025 | Leadership, Management, Strategy, Talent, Uncategorized
For those of you who don’t know, I recently ventured out on my own professionally. It got me thinking about how that transition wasn’t easy for me and wondered if it was true for others.
As my career progressed and I found myself looking for employment at various stages in life, I searched for my next employment opportunity. To be sure, often I was searching for the next promotion or title that would get me to a goal. Sometimes that promotion occurred from my current employer and often, it happened because of a new job, either as an opening or even more exciting at a new position from a growth mode employer.
Many of you can relate to the idea as it illustrates the idea of climbing the corporate ladder. At times, you need to make a lateral move to get into a new industry or get out of a difficult workplace or economic downturn. It’s what most of us graduating into the full-time workforce do, often without really mapping out our career journey or path.
In the beginning, especially during the child rearing days, I never gave a thought to the idea of going into business on my own. I valued the security of being employed, plus I didn’t have a dream to pursue. While I knew others who had their own consulting business or worked for various clients as a freelancer, it honestly didn’t even come up in my thought process (and I think about everything A LOT!)
The Four Core Entrepreneurial Traits
Why do you think that is? Are we genetically programmed to prefer to be employed vs. being an entrepreneur? Actually, there are studies to point that this is true. This one was featured in Entrepreneur magazine:
It was conducted by Scott Shane, a professor at Case Western Reserve University. Shane looked at hundreds of pairs of twins, eventually finding that the identical twins among them had much higher rates of “shared entrepreneurial tendencies” than their fraternal counterparts or subjects in the control group.
When exploring the data, he found four core entrepreneurial traits, each of which increases the likelihood of becoming an entrepreneur, while also being heritable:
1. The likelihood of starting a business. Genes can influence your probability of starting a business.
2. The ability to identify new opportunities. Your ability to identify business opportunities is similarly heritable.
3. The tendency to become self-employed. Related to but distinct from starting a business, self-employment is also a heritable probability.
4. Extroversion. Though extroversion by itself isn’t enough to motivate entrepreneurship, extroverts have an easier time making new connections, leading followers and engaging in a wider community.
The Choice: Employment or Entrepreneurship?
I agree with all of this and have an unscientific add-on judgement as well. I have noticed that many serial entrepreneurs have some sort of example to emulate. Maybe it’s because they are predisposed to running a business from a nature perspective or it’s because they have seen family-owned businesses their own life. Whatever the case, think about many of your friends or family members – is there a pattern?
In my case, it’s the opposite. I can’t recall anyone in our family owning their own business. For me, when I started thinking about it a few years ago, the prospect filled me with dread. I’d feel anxious and wonder what I could contribute to our household, pay bills and save for retirement. All my focus was towards the idea of not having the necessary financial security. I had little confidence in my abilities to earn a freelance living.
I needed to take time, actually years, to contemplate the prospect. It took me a long time to put together resources like a business plan and a financial proforma to feel more comfortable, even to think seriously about the idea.
I guess it that it isn’t one way that is better than the other. But there is the opportunity to think differently – either way. Sometimes, it is great to own our own business and other times it is wonderful to be employed by someone else.
What do you think? What do you prefer – and why?!
