Managerial Styles & The Boomerang (Life as a CIA Group Leader)

Managing is something that hits home in correlation to peoples’ lives. I come from a rural part of Nebraska and manager is something that a lot of people seem to have on their resumé, but as the final stepping stone. It is something people often begin with, but now that they are so far…why not? I would have to say that times have changed due to younger kids, like me, having higher aspirations towards their goals in life and completing them rather than always taking the Opportunity Cost. Opportunity Cost is a marketing term referring to something else that is available, but is second in the persons’ mind. I use this in regards to the educational availability that one person has, but decides to take another route and remains on that road they did not want.

Management is a tricky thing. I believe that people think that it is scarier to do the arithmetic or the paperwork rather than be a part of your employee’s lives. I would have to completely disagree. Everything that a manager does is a constant in regards to paperwork and daily tasks, and the only variable every single day is the person that comes in and works for you. It is this relationship that needs to be worked upon and strengthened. As we all know from class by now that there are several types of managing styles. There is the dreadful scientific style that makes people seem like robots. I know everyone hates this because there was definitely a time in everybody’s life that they had to do something so repetitively that they just wanted to scream bloody murder. There is also human relations, the great afterthought of the scientific method. I would say that this is one of the more efficient types of methods due to there is productivity matched with socialization to encourage more productivity…it’s amazing! Participative management is the one that people usually rave about. People of today are all about having a say in everything. This I feel would lead to a less productive environment because in my mind there would be more talking about what could be done in various different ways rather than just doing it and getting it done. Lastly the one that is just like a huge rubber band ball of all managing styles is humanistic management. It is a variation of all management theories combined into one bouncy work ethic. I say bouncy because bouncing is great fun, like bouncing on a bed or a trampoline, and that relates directly to how one feels when they work with this theory. The people working feel part of a team that they can talk to while having a partial say to what should happen at certain times. It is possibly the best one of all!

In the text book that we read for homework there is one manager theory that is more of a style that cannot be passed up without really thinking why. It is the famously known boomerang manager/theory. I say this because we have all seen that manager that goes back to that special niche they once had with all their friends and getting along while cooking. I ponder upon my education here at the CIA quite a bit and one day during class it hit me, “We are creating those managers each and every day!” The reason I say this is because here at the CIA we have group leaders. They are sort of the demi-gods of the kitchen, the chef being the all powerful one. The group leader is the liaison between the students and chef. Group leaders have the same tasks as the students working, yet they have a certain managerial advantage above us all because they are group leaders. I will let this set in for just a minute. The text refers to a boomerang manager as someone who goes back to where they started, to old buddies. The context of the text almost frowns upon this method due to the confusion to the employees. Does it not sound like the constant life of a group leader, having both aspects in their duties? If it is somewhat frowned upon due to confusion, why is the CIA allowing it to happen?