Managerial styles: meet the coercive manager

One of the topics not usually covered in a project management course is managerial styles. There are many managerial styles, and this article will focus on the coervice style.

Bob has just been made Junior Manager as part of his grad scheme. He left Southampton University three years ago with a 2.1 in Business Studies, and he knows the ins and outs of business management like a mouse in a maze. This is why he isn’t fazed in the slightest when he is put in charge of a planning team with an average age fifteen years his senior.

On Day 1 of his new position, Bob strides confidently into the office with a list of jobs to be done and a rota already prepared. He has learned the value of deciding roles and responsibilities in advance from his military upbringing – his father was in the army – and from his first boss, who was a pushover.

When a member of the team protests, Bob is outraged, but he is also prepared. He knows that if the team think he is inexperienced as well as young, then it will take even more effort to make them follow his instructions.

He raises his voice above that of the protestor, informing him that failure to comply will result in a week playing lackey at the photocopier, and orders the team back to their desks.

By lunchtime of Day 1, Bob has done the rounds of the entire office, making sure that everybody from the senior planner to the admin girl knows what they have to do and how they have to do it.

When it turns out that one of the tasks is already behind schedule, he takes the unfortunate staff member responsible to a visible corner of the office and shouts at him until he is certain that the message has got through.

On Day 2 the staff delegate their most experienced member to approach Bob with a list of reasons why his instructions will result in badly-planned projects. Bob barely glances at the list before feeding it into the shredder. He knows that this is a crux in his management career: he cannot afford to let subordinate staff think that they can push him around.

By Day 5 two people have complained to Bob’s boss, one person has consistently called in sick, and the remainder are sitting quietly at their desks, trying to avoid the glare of Bob’s attention.

Bob is taken quietly aside and his manager explains to him that his coercive management style is detrimental to team motivation, and that micromanagement, far from ensuring productivity, kills creativity and initiative.

Bob’s coercive style – telling people what to do and shouting at them until they do it – has three main drawbacks: the team does not like it, so is not motivated to work for Bob’s approval; micromanagement takes up time that Bob could spend working on the project in hand; the individual team members had more technical knowledge than the manager, and could have written more effective instructions.

Coercive management is most effective in situations where there is only one available course of action, and where that course of action must be followed swiftly and precisely according to instructions. It is a powerful tool to be saved for moments of necessity, rather than wasted on everyday office situations.