By: Bruce Tulgan

A lot of times managers say to me, "How can I be a strong manager when I'm not the only boss an employee answers to?" Nowadays, a lot of employees are working on different projects for different managers; they answer to multiple people. And sometimes when managers try to hold employees accountable, the employee might say, "Well, gee, I was working on that project for you but then I got another assignment from Ms. So and So and that got in the way. Sorry." How do you deal with that?

The truth is nowadays most employees in most workplaces are going to have obligations to multiple leaders and managers at any given time and sometimes those obligations will be overlapping, sometimes they will be conflicting. You can't control that; you can't change that. All you can do is decide which manager you are going to be.

When somebody is working for you on a project, on a task, on a responsibility, you've got to make sure that you make your expectations clear. You've got to make sure that you make it clear, "This is how I operate. This is who I am. I'm going to spell things out. I'm going to follow up, follow up, follow up. I'm going to monitor, measure and document every step of the way, everything you do. That's who I am. That's the manager I am." And if you're the strong, highly engaged manager -- for one thing, most employees are likely to put your assignments first.

The other thing you can do is you can teach your employees that, when somebody else comes to give you an assignment, if you're working on something for me, you've got to stop and say, "Well let me just explain that I'm already working on this assignment for this manager and here's my goal and here's my deadline." And you've got to at least let that other leader/manager know that you've got something that you are working on.

The other thing you can do is you can let employees know if something else should come up, please stop; call me, send me an email, let me know that something has come up which might get in the way. And maybe you have to tell them, "Look, maybe I will have to call that other manager and we'll work it out." The last thing in the world you want to do is put employees in a position where they need to somehow try to decide which assignment should take priority. You need to work that out with the other manager.

Also, remember if that Ms. So and So is you, if you're the one who drops assignments on employees' desks without asking whether they're working on something for someone else, you better build in your own standard operating procedure that when you're giving an assignment, you've got to stop and ask, "Hey what are all the other things you're working on right now?" And then at least you're in a position to decide whether your assignment should take priority and you're in a position to know whether maybe you need to call another manager and work that out before you give this assignment to this particular employee.

It's also the case that remember there are always go-to employees, the self-starting high performers who get lots of work done and don't need as much support and guidance; that's who everybody goes to. So one of the things you can do is look at some of the employees who have underutilized capacity. Yes, they may require more hands-on management; they may require more guidance and direction. They've probably got some room on their plate because they need more hands-on management and they require more guidance and direction. But if you are willing to go to the folks who have underutilized capacity and spend the time guiding and directing them and building them up, maybe you'll create a new go-to person, and that's a favor you can do for that individual. That's also a very valuable thing you can do for your organization; building up the productive capacity of another employee.

BONUS MANAGEMENT BEST PRACTICE
Document employee performance every step of the way:
Try documenting performance just by using the checklists you make in your one-on-one meetings with direct-reports. In each meeting, boil down the expectations you set into a checklist of concrete actions within the control of the individual. Then in your next meeting, go over the checklist together, on each matter asking, "Did you do it? By the deadline? In keeping with the guidelines?" Yes, yes, yes? Check!