Introduction for line managers

When you manage people well, you build effective working relationships and create an environment that is open, respectful, kind, fair and consistent, in which people feel ‘psychologically safe’. Psychological safety is where people feel they can speak up and share concerns, questions or ideas freely without being criticised or made to feel ‘wrong’ for doing so. Research shows that psychological safety has huge benefits for learning, engagement and performance. 

Good relationships and creating a culture of psychological safety also put you in a better position to manage tricky people issues. For example, if a member of your team is struggling with a mental health problem, has suffered a bereavement, or is dealing with other sensitive, difficult circumstances, they are more likely to talk to you about it if you have established a trusting, safe working relationship and environment by building and sustaining relationships and being open, fair and consistent. If you are good at handling conflict and problems, you are in a better position to prevent conflict arising in your team and to tackle it early, avoiding it escalating and becoming more problematic. In all cases of tricky people management issues, working on the behaviours outlined in these resources will enable you to be more likely to spot issues that arise and address them early and effectively.

Note: This does not mean that you become your team’s counsellor, therapist, best friend or confidant. They need others to support them in those roles. What it does mean is that you are part of their support network, can help them with the work aspects of the situation and can ensure that work is not part of the problem – in fact, work can actually be part of the solution by building their confidence and sense of purpose.

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected many aspects of life and work, from serious illness and sudden, traumatic bereavement to sheltering from the virus; from furlough and redundancies to increased caseloads/workloads; from social isolation and loneliness to being cooped up with house-mates or family 24/7; from working from home for the first time to feeling at risk because of having to travel on public transport; from home-schooling children to being separated from loved ones. The list of challenges and changes goes on. People have experienced a myriad of emotions – anxiety, uncertainty, relief, excitement, grief, loss, satisfaction, drama, boredom, gratitude, care, overwhelm, compassion, numbness, confusion, insight – sometimes all in one day! There are a range of issues still to be faced, including anxieties around returning to work and/or commuting, fears over the financial fallout’, uncertainties in how to navigate the ‘new normal’, concerns about exposure to the virus and so on.

The experience has been very different for everyone, so it is important not to make any assumptions. However, a few things are becoming clear:

• The risk of mental health problems has increased – there were already high levels of mental health problems (1 in 6 people experiencing a mental health problem every week) and the pandemic has both exacerbated pre-existing problems and caused problems for many who hadn’t experienced them before
• General health and wellbeing has been affected – including musculoskeletal problems due to uncomfortable work conditions at home, reduced access to health care services, changed lifestyles, exercise, nutrition etc. 
• People are dealing with changes to their working situation – temporary or permanent shifts in the amount and type of work they are doing, where they are working, the contact they have with co-workers and so on.
• Inequality, unfairness and injustice have been highlighted – the burden of and fallout from the pandemic has fallen more heavily on some groups than others, including those from BAME backgrounds, those with health problems, those with lower incomes and lower levels of education, those with caring responsibilities, the over 65s and the under 30s.

What has become clear during the pandemic is that the role of line managers has become even more crucial for employees’ health, wellbeing and engagement. Research has shown that employees who had less contact with their line manager during the initial months of the pandemic had poorer mental health. Supportive, positive management approaches are imperative for protecting and supporting people in dealing with the challenges and opportunities of the current context. The kind of management style set out in the five key behavioural areas covered by this development toolkit also role-models important behaviours and attitudes for your team and the organisation, such as compassion, care, openness and respect, concern and interest in one another, which will help everyone to support each other, including clients or service users.

Compassion, care and kindness are not about being soft or wishy-washy or even liking everyone. You can be a professional manager and care. One way of looking at this is to see the importance of combining wisdom and compassion. In this context, wisdom is about being able to:

• See the broader picture, recognise that your view is just one of many ways of seeing things
• Recognise how interdependent and connected everything is (people, teams, organisations, the environment etc)
• Balance the demands of the job, organisation, shareholders and other stakeholders with the need to take care of and engage your employees
• Know how to take difficult decisions and be firm in order to get tough things done while at the same time showing respect and kindness to individuals.

Compassion without wisdom can lead to avoiding saying or doing difficult things, but wisdom without compassion can lead to being clever and strategic but unkind – for example, putting short-term results before people's wellbeing. When you have both wisdom and compassion, you can take hard decisions and get things done, whilst still being caring and benevolent.

Developing wisdom and compassion is a life-long journey, but the guidance and exercises available here are designed to help you take some steps along it.

Of course, this is not just about your team members, it is also about caring for your own health, wellbeing and engagement. If you don’t take care of yourself, you won’t be able to take care of those who work for you. To manage in this world of uncertainty, you need to find a sense of stability for yourself. This is particularly true when it comes to having the capacity to listen, and allow space for employees’ emotions, and to manage the complexity of human relationships. Sometimes ‘giving someone a good listening to’ is the best thing you can do for their wellbeing – even if there is nothing you can do to resolve the issues they are raising.

As mentioned above, having healthy, engaged, high performing employees is part of looking after yourself because you will get better results and be able to address problems that arise before they become crises. Good trusting relationships with your team can also mean that the team is there to support you with challenges that arise in your work and life: you can delegate tasks to them, draw on their ideas and expertise, and gain a sense of meaning from the team’s achievements and appreciation. So, caring for your team is part of caring for yourself and vice versa.

Importantly, being a caring, positive, supportive manager will be easier if you can take a caring, positive, supportive approach to yourself. Compassion and self-compassion are closely inter-linked and both draw on a sense of common humanity. When we recognise that struggles, emotional and physical pain, and personal inadequacy are all part of our shared human experience – that they are experiences that we all go through, rather than something that happens to ‘me’ alone – we are much better able to be kind to ourselves and to others.

Managing people well has a range of benefits for you and to your organisation.

Firstly, when a team is healthy, engaged and performing, you are likely to get better results: this might be in terms of productivity, customer/patient care, sales or financial returns; it may also be about better employee retention, reduced sickness absence or fewer grievances and disciplinaries, saving time for you in not having to deal with these issues. Better results and reduced costs are a source of success and satisfaction for the organisation, the team and for you as the manager.

Secondly, managing in positive, healthy ways, as shown in the behavioural areas covered here, can prevent people management issues from arising, so you don’t have to give time and energy to dealing with them. For example:

• When your management approach creates support and collaboration, for example by building and sustaining relationships, conflict between team members is less likely and people will help one another out if needed. 
• When you provide people with clarity about tasks, expectations and how they are doing, you are less likely to find them focusing on the wrong task or getting into a poor performance spiral.
• When your behaviour is appreciative, positive, consistent, and kind, and you remain calm under pressure yourself, team members are less likely to get stressed. 
• When you treat people fairly, openly and with respect, grievances and complaints are less likely to occur.
• When you support people’s development, they are less likely to leave unexpectedly.

Finally, if problems do emerge in your team, you are more likely to know about them at an early stage. If you know your team well and have built good relationships with them, you will be more able to spot conflict, mental health problems, people struggling with their work or with non-work challenges. When people trust you, they are more likely to tell you about these things as soon as they start happening. Being in a position to address issues or refer people to appropriate support early on means they are less likely to escalate into major problems and will save you a huge amount of time.