Do You Work Harder Than Your Boss?

I'd like to comment on the perception that managers do "less" work than their employees. Obviously I don't work where you work, but in my experience (I manage 8 people and 4 functional areas) - the type of work I do *is* significantly different from my team's. In fact, this is something that takes a lot of adjustment when you first become a manager. It's the kind of thing that becomes more obvious in hindsight and difficult to see when you're not in the situation yourself yet. I'll try to explain: My team's output tends to be analyses, product/service delivery, customer service, systems implementation, and so forth. My output tends to be strategy setting, job design, analyzing and procuring resources for projects we're trying to do, interacting with other service units to try to get their cooperation, managing those projects, and putting out fires, either from angry customers or senior management, among other things. It's my job to determine what we should be doing, whether we're actually doing those things, and what we need to successfully to do them (i.e. people, what those people need to know, what those people need to do). Much of this might be invisible to my staff, although I do try to share what can be shared. But there's a lot they don't see or I cna't share. It seems you might be talking about a different type of management job in this post - but where I work, there's no room for that, and I'm surprised there would be anywhere, in this economy.

There's a second theme here: that a lack of direction, input, and/or review from their manager is a frequent employee experience and is somehow accepted by management as being the way to manage people. I absolutely agree that this shows a lack of respect for people's time and effort and is no way to delegate or manage people, besides being extremely annoying for the recipient. I've been the recipient of this behavior enough that as a manager, I never want to put my employees in that position. However, if you are in this situation, you can't really change the manager, you can only control the way you react to it, or decide to move on if you really can't live with it. The people I've seen be successful in such a situation (and there have been a rare few) will be those that get the answer somehow, some way, anyway. Maybe from gathering feedback piecemeal instead of all in one sitting. Maybe from a proxy who knows the boss's style. Or maybe from falling flat on their face, but learning from it for next time. It's far from awesome, obviously. But don't be a victim. Help yourself. And have enough self-awareness to realize what you're learning.

"Do entry-level employees perceive phone calls and meetings as easier work than the work they’re doing because it’s less mundane and tiresome?"

Once those entry-level employees advance a bit, they'll learn a lot about how mundane and tiresome meetings and phone calls can be.

Here's how I've learned that my bosses' jobs are harder than mine:

1) Remembering from my own leadership positions, even in high school, that the leader is the one who's accountable, even if someone lower actually screwed up. Because either they should have been trained and managed better, or the screw up should have been caught by the boss while there was time to counteract the effects.

2) Paying attention to what other people said about how well our department was run, and how much they liked working with us rather than with other departments--and noticing that my boss set the tone for the rest of us. From there, it wasn't hard to figure out that she was shielding us from a lot of nonsense that other managers wanted to push onto her. Her job was harder because she was working to make ours easier.

3) Having a boss who actually talked to me about what he had to do and who he had to work with to get it done. He was adept at corralling egos, and there were plenty at his level. But it took a lot of work on his part.

Early on, I realized that if I think someone else's job is easy, it probably means I don't know enough about that person's job.

You know how some people think that since it's their house, they can do whatever they want in it? A lot of workplaces are like that, especially private companies, small companies, and family-owned companies. Remember, the goals of your boss (or his boss!) *may not be* to do a good job, or even any job at all. If he or she is getting away with it, it's probably never going to get better (just ignore movies like Working Girl--it's a movie because it's a complete fantasy). That is because it is usually easier or better to leave him or her there. This can be very dangerous for younger employees because a) they operate on logic b) they assume people are motivated by excellence or doing a good job c)it usually IS a good reason to leave the boss there, which also means it's so weird and hard to fathom that you will never figure it out in a million years. Of course, if the owner is doing this, there's your problem right there.
If some jackass yells at you, a guest, for coming into his house and sitting in what he considers to be his favorite chair, you'd probably leave and not go back. It can take a little longer, but if this is your situation you need to do the same thing at work. This site is a great start :)

@JRandom - Is most of it out of sight? Probably. But disagree that perception doesn't matter. If an entire department thinks that their leader isn't working very hard they're going to be more inclined to slack off and adversely affect the entire department.

@Lani - EXCELLENT response, and I really appreciate you taking the time provide such a thorough explanation. Let me be clear that I was not talking about my place of work, rather the consensus I get from talking with other members of Gen Y. The impression I get is just hearing their boss say something like "strategy setting, job design, analyzing and procuring resources for projects we're trying to do," would send them into a fit of joy.

I think the two most important things I'm gleaning from this conversation (here and in the comments of my own blog) is that perception matters and often simple communication can go a long way into clearing up a lot of the discrepancies between the two parties.

@Megan - And the problem is, even in this economy, I think this is becoming increasingly more common. Unfortunately, I'm not convinced you're in the minority. And in an entirely different discussion all together I don't care if they leave early provided they were in at 6am, and I don't care if they take a long lunch if I get awesome feedback on reports at 8pm that evening. For MOST jobs the notion of sitting at a desk from 9-5 everyday is ridiculous.

@Kate - 1.) You're boss sounds like he communicates well. From what I've encountered, you're probably in the minority. Your boss also 'set the tone,' whereas the bosses I've tried to describe in the post do nothing of the sort. 2.) I think your distinction to Megan's comment is a good one, and "not knowing that much about it," is probably a likely scenario for many people complaining.

I'd also argue that AT LEAST 50% of those meetings and phone calls are completely unnecessary, but that's a different post.

@TroyW - I don't know how many family owned business I've seen where the owner does a LITTLE work, and his son/daughter makes $80K to do NOTHING but yell at employees for no reason. It sometimes seems like it's just a hobby and as long as they're a little bit profitable, write off a bunch of taxes, etc. they could care less about growing, giving their employees positions to grow into or increasing their salary. Turnover is terrible and they just keep bringing in new entry level employees for crap salary. It's bullshit, but you're right. All you can do it put the work in to differentiate yourself (here or elsewhere) and make a run for it.

@Ryan, another thought: all bosses set a tone. Some aren't aware of it, and some choose to set a bad tone. The good ones are aware and choose to set good tones. But the boss sets the tone, regardless of these factors.