When you manage a team of people, there is a ton to learn about them—their productivity, their relationships with each other, what keeps them motivated—etc. However, when you manage a team of managers, who each has her own team, you need to expand your skill set. Here are a few tips on how to approach the delicate balance of managing managers.

1. Let their employees report to them. Don’t cut them out of communications or encourage their teams to come to you when they should be going to them. Inserting yourself between your managers and their teams (unless there is a problem) fosters mistrust in their relationship. This will erode the manager’s ability to succeed and, though not immediately, it will also erode everyone’s belief in your leadership.
    
2. Use caution when addressing an issue with a manager if the issue was raised by her employees. First, listen and test the report that has been brought to you. If a manager’s employee brings a concern to you about the manager being unclear in her communication, consider this in light of what you know about the manager. If you’re confident in your manager’s communication skills, you may want to assure the employee that this sounds surprising based on what you’ve observed in the manager’s communications. It sounds like the manager and employee have different ways of communicating, or perhaps the manager may be off her a-game. On the flip side, if you are aware that your manager is struggling with communication, you want to tread lightly. First, acknowledge that it’s something of which you’re aware and that you’re working on improving it. However, don’t give more reason for the employee to doubt or not respect her manager. Don’t encourage tattling and, as often as possible, redirect employees to their manager. You may want to ask how they might address the situation and practice a role play of how the conversation with their manager might go. This is a valuable opportunity to strengthen their relationship, but only if you thoughtfully balance the varying needs and honor the inherent boundaries in these relationships.
    
3. Get creative in order to assess a manager’s skills interacting with her staff members. In supervision, you could ask her how she is framing messages to staff. For instance, if she tells you someone is not performing, ask how she will address the problem. If you see room to improve her approach—perhaps she plans on telling the employee that her performance is unacceptable—you could coach her into expanding her approach. In addition to stressing that the performance is unacceptable, ask her what it would be like if she maintained a level of curiosity about the poor performance. Then follow up to see if she followed your guidance and how it went. 

As a manager to managers you have a great opportunity to develop both the managers and their teams because you are somewhat removed from their relationship. You can choose to see things from a bird’s eye view. You can have your managers’ backs, without necessarily aligning yourself against the staff. Remember, everyone is on your team, so make them feel that way. 

How do you manage other managers? Tell us your tips in the comments below.