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.