Managing strong personalities [was Re: how to manage]

[Kate O'Neill <kate -at- kathleen -dot- net>]

"RUBOTTOM, AL" wrote:
> To those who manage others, are managed by others, work in teams, work with
> engineers/SW developers:
> 
> Please share your most important tools, techniques, lessons learned, battles
> won/lost, how you gained knowledge/insight/seasoning from same.
[...]
> The challenges of managing the strong personalities we like to hire is a
> side-topic in its own right.

I'm not managing now (I've switched to freelance writing), 
but in previous management positions I've had several 
strong personalities in my groups. That in and of itself 
has never struck me as unusual or difficult, since I have 
a rather strong personality myself. ;-) But in two cases, 
I was brought in to manage a group that included at least 
one person who felt that he/she had been managing the group 
unofficially and should have been promoted to manager. Not 
an easy dynamic to walk into.

In both cases, I approached the groups as the -project- 
manager as much as possible. After I came to understand 
the strengths of the individuals in my group, I also made 
sure they had enough responsibility to keep them interested 
and challenged, and enough ownership of projects that "fit" 
to keep them satisfied. My own role in the group, as I'd 
explain it to them, was to monitor the progress of our 
projects, keep external resources available, minimize 
unnecessary and frivolous demands on our group's time, and 
contribute to the projects as needed. Eventually, both of 
the "unhappy" individuals came around to support me, they 
both made strong contributions to the leadership of the 
group, and one of them even sought career guidance from me.

Any other managers have thoughts on dealing with strong 
personalities?

- Kate O'

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