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As Remote Work Scales, What Happens With Task-Driven Managers?
It’s a bit binary to say there are “only” two types of managers, because managers come in about 10,000 flavors, both good and bad. But if you want broad brushstrokes, there are “task-focused managers” and “relationship-focused managers.”
A task-focused manager is not really concerned with you as a human being, so much as you as a source of output. They want to see numbers and believe deeply in deadlines. This has some benefit to the organization, and potentially to the manager’s ascent, but it can be a soul-sucking person to work for.
A relationship-focused manager is more about the empathy and people side of what work is. Some of your discussions and priority-setting with this type of manager can become meandering, which is annoying and not helpful, but in general this is a better type of person to work for, depending on your own sense of what “work” actually is.
COVID hit the pivot switch on remote, hybrid, in-office, etc. We are now in a never-ending circus of discussions about the best model, with the real answer being: “Whatever works for your organization and people.”
But, aside from solely in-person work like retail, service, bartending, factory, etc… most…
