Why Line-Management is so Hard

Most organizations—business, non-profit or governmental—should be structured around a spine of line-management. So strong line-managers are highly desirable types. However, it is evident that not everyone is equally capable of the emotional demands of line-management (as specified here).

Organizational culture affects the handing of responsibility, the self-disciplined mastery of emotions, and the use of status and formal power to influence others. As a result, line-managers should:

• get positive satisfaction from being purposeful,
• welcome taking responsibility for the work of others, &
• have a strong drive to participate in group activity. 

Such demands engage the kind of personal identity captured in THEE's 4th Principal Typology. There are 7 distinct approaches. This THEE Typology reveals distinctive necessary «psychosocial supplies» for each approach, formerly viewed in terms of identity development but now seen as handling mental stabilization.
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Of the seven approaches, Social Being-PH'4-L6 stands out because it depends on responsibility. This approach also features intentionality and participation as additional, characteristic properties.

Social Being-PH'4-L6 is fairly common, but still probably not widely applicable to most staff. So the handling of line-management is often unsatisfactory. Performance will depend to a considerable degree on other identity features of the particular manager.

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Studies on the relation between these PH'4-Types and the demands of management are weak and incomplete Empirical researchers please note. . As a hypothesis, Relational Beings would seem likely to give too much attention to relationships, to the detriment of tasks and duties. It is a certainty that Emotional Beings and Transpersonal Beings generally find management difficult and unpleasant, if not abhorrent. Different services and industries, however, attract different identity Types.

Note: Administering may suffice for those in charge.

Bureaucratic organizations and government agencies often find that administrative control is satisfactory for many of their purposes: even if not for clients, customers or taxpayers. It is certainly relatively easy to find people capable of administering.

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Originally posted: 20-Oct-2011