It's always been hard to manage people. Nowadays, it's harder than ever. The workplace has become more and more high pressure and the workforce more and more high maintenance. Meanwhile, the pendulum of management thinking, books, and training has swung so far in exactly the wrong direction. What little management training managers do receive is usually dominated by the "false empowerment" approach: It holds that managers should not keep close track of employees and they definitely should not zero in on employee failures. Employees should be made to feel they "own" their work and should be set free to make their own decisions. Managers are merely facilitators, there to align the natural talents and desires of employees with fitting roles in the workplace. Managers should not tell people how to do their jobs, but rather let employees come up with their own methods. The idea is, make employees feel good inside and results will take care of themselves.

But real managers don't operate in fantasyland. They have to deal with the "hard" realities of managing people today:

(-) You cannot always hire superstars. You have to hire the best person available, and often that person is in the middle of the talent spectrum, not at the top.

(-) When you do hire superstars, they can be even harder to manage than the mediocre people.

(-) Employees do not have the "power" to do things their own way in the workplace and they are not free to ignore tasks they don't like.

(-) Even if you set expectations clearly, sometimes employees don't achieve those expectations.

(-) Not everybody is a winner. Dealing with failure is a big part of managing.

(-) Employees can't always work in the areas they enjoy most because there is lots of work to be done, and employees are hired to do what needs to be done.

(-) Employees don't always earn praise. And those who do earn praise usually want tangible rewards, not just praise.

(-) Somebody is in charge and employees will "be held accountable."
It's time to pull the pendulum of management back in the right direction toward real empowerment.