I had a manager who could never make a decision:
- “So, what do you think?” I’d say. “I’ll get back to you,” he’d respond.
- “Is that OK?” I’d ask. “I’ll let you know,” he’d say.
- “How about it?” I’d inquire. “Let me think about it,” he’d reply.
After each exchange, he’d scuttle off to his managers office, chat them up, get their opinion, and then – and only then – could he deliver a decision.
Listen, I understand the value in getting another point of view, but often these were simple, even mundane decisions like, “Greg and I would like to trade lunch hours today. Okay with you?” Scuttle, chat, question, “I guess it’s Okay.”
Maddening to be sure. But at least I got a good cartoon out of it.
For those types of bosses, a reasonable risk/approach to take would be to take actions on your own initiative and tell the boss about the results afterwards. If you can show your own autonomy and ability to deliver desired results, then perhaps you’ll be able to wean your boss off of being so involved in the decision-making in the first place. Naturally, you’ll need to make sure that you give credit to your boss for the wisdom in delegating the decision-making authority in the first place, but as a business owner, I’d have preferred to have people who took initiative and only involved me when action was needed to help extricate them from problems (and to help them learn from mistakes).
So that’s the case of either double minded personality or a person with low confidence…but in both the cases I wonder how can one reach to the manager’s post or that would be a company of 3 persons, i.e CEO, manager & employee 🙂