What’s Needed From Managers Now

In paraphrasing an article from Strategy + Business Newsletter, in this unsettled time of labor shortages doing it the old way may not work anymore.

“As organizations shift from command-and-control leadership to more decentralized decision-making, the “frozen middle” is melting—and managers have to step up.”   What does this mean?

The referenced article utilizes the issue of determining whether people should return to their offices or places of work and how managers handle the problem. There might be a bit of that in the ski resort world but not in mountain operations. In the broader world of industry, companies are pushing more decision-making to their frontline managers, who in turn have to step up and make some tougher judgment calls. The ski resort world has seen a bit of this during COVID, and I expect it to continue and broaden. It makes operational, management development, and financial sense.

For ski areas to push down the decision-making, there needs to be training for frontline managers and better hiring or promoting for those positions. The old way of promoting or hiring someone without first accessing their ability of decision making and their willingness to step will backfire if you expect more and good decision making from your frontline managers.

Suppose your ski area has capable frontline managers. In that case, the article points out that the command and control or the dictatorial management method is not acceptable to many in today’s workforce. Maybe you have to change your approach to retain those capable managers. Again training, setting expectations and retraining yourself.