Topic: Who's the worst type of manager?

[Uncle Che]

Who's the worst type of Western manager? The former Burger King manager who now keeps the foreign teachers in tow? What about the wannabe Bill Lumbergh type? How about the the Ho Chi Minh death camp warden wannabe who tells teachers what they can or can not do?  Any type I am missing?

[Mods-Rockers]

How about the khamic ex hippie who cannot hold a thought process for more than 22.0005 nsec due to frying the grey cells during the 60's with some phychotropic or other.

[samvimes]

The worst kind are the ones that licked arse to get their position, are incompetent, and are threatened by any type of professionalism/knowledge that would show them in a negative light.

[bomha]

Pschopathics who were promoted by Thais who think that farrang need 'agressive' management.

[Uncle Che]

ex-Burger King managers are very good at that aggressive management. They know how to sell a junk product at high margins while paying their employees peanuts and over working them. Isn't that what some of the schools in Thailand are doing?

[anyonefortennis]

Personally I can’t stand the type that stands over your shoulder watching what your doing, like a bloody parrot sitting on your shoulder…………

Aggressive managers are ok if they channel their aggression towards improving the work systems rather than bullying the teachers.

A good number of the managers over here are in positions that they would not have landed in their home country and as such are ill prepared and under qualified to undertake the job effectively. I should think a good number of western managers are ex-salesmen and have landed their jobs because they have the gift of the gab, rather than relevant experience and qualifications.

That said, none of the people I know over here come close to some of the twats I worked for back in blighty.

[hero]

The biggest problem with managers at schools is that they aren't managers.  They are nearly always "promoted" teachers, often selected for being good teachers or because they get along with the owners - neither of these qualities could be said to ensure that they would necessarily be good managers!

Being a good teacher requires a whle different set of skills from being a good manager, I'm not saying one can't be good at both, just that the two don't necessarily go hand in hand.

Being a "friend" to the owners is useful position to be in in any place of work, especially in a foreign country.  However, mix that with poor management skills and you will soon come under the suspicious eye of colleagues and subordinates, pretty much guaranteed that you won't have many friends on the team.

On the flipside, management is all about making decisions and taking responsibility for planning and organising - in this respect very few of the "managers" here are ever that (farang or Thai).  More often than not they act as messengers only, the few people at the top of the chain of command tend to make all of the decisions - even the decisions at the micro level!

My short career as a school admin taught me that it was a hopeless position.  I would spend time getting to know teachers and finding out what problems or concerns there were.  Unfortunately, I wasn't able to act on anything without extensive consultations with the boss (who had terrible organisational skills) - I couldn't win the respect of all the teachers because they saw me as someone who talked a good game but never acted on anything.  The boss would use me to gauge opinions, but never act until it was too late and we had a big problem.  I thought I could have made a difference, but it wasn't to be!

[anyonefortennis]

I think you've hit the nail on the head Hero, even if you have got the required skills to be a decent manager with the chain of command and decision making process that is in place at most schools/universities makes it damn near impossible to achieve anything.


Also your comments about good teachers being put in management positions is spot on, as was mentioned on a thread a while back there are certain positions that require professionals from that field, HR / counsellors /  marketing / public relations etc.

However schools are on a budget and have to make do, and there is also the fact that it is not what you know but who you know that will land you the job.   

[wangsuda]

On the flipside, management is all about making decisions and taking responsibility for planning and organising - in this respect very few of the "managers" here are ever that (farang or Thai).  More often than not they act as messengers only, the few people at the top of the chain of command tend to make all of the decisions - even the decisions at the micro level!

Been there, done that, and have the t-shirt to prove it. That is why I left management and went back to teaching. This is so spot on.

[hero]

Also your comments about good teachers being put in management positions is spot on, as was mentioned on a thread a while back there are certain positions that require professionals from that field, HR / counsellors /  marketing / public relations etc.

However schools are on a budget and have to make do, and there is also the fact that it is not what you know but who you know that will land you the job.

My mother (now recently retired) was a lifelong teacher in the UK.  She too would always "have a beef" with "the management", most of her issues seemed to be of the same ilk - that schools were not managed by managers, but teachers-cum-managers.  I guess that's just the way it is.

How many teachers could genuinely say they would appreciate "real managers" being brought into educational establishments, particularly if they weren't education trained or specialists in education.  That in itself would also breed resentment!

In Thailand, I guess the problem becomes more emphatic due to language/cultural barriers, but I guess it is in no way different to other countries and industries.

[wangsuda]

How many teachers could genuinely say they would appreciate "real managers" being brought into educational establishments, particularly if they weren't education trained or specialists in education.  That in itself would also breed resentment

What is needed is a professional manager who is familiar with education. Unfortunately, there isn't good money in that back in our home countries. In California (or at least in the school district I previously taught), our "managers" are called department chairpeople and it is an elected spot that no one wants. We aren't stupid, we're teachers; not managers.

[anyonefortennis]

Spot on again Hero.

I worked at a university in Sarf London for a number of years and they were in big trouble money wise (thanx in no small part 2 government policies of the time) in the end the VC cleared out all academics from management positions and replaced them with corporate bods, it caused no end of unrest and resentment..................although the ploy worked and the university has turned things around no end, in fact it started to improve around the time I left, coincidence?

[Pibthong]

   Managers I've dealt with in the States are usually degreed professionals; the more experience they have the better they are. The minority are the good teachers advanced to be assistant principal. One suburban high school of about 1,200 students had two such asst principals, ie, both were advanced from teaching positions in which they were excellent. However, they were anonymous. I barely remember their faces. I never saw them out and about. Maybe that's good but somehow I doubt it.
   In Korea asst principal is a prestigious, career-capping position awarded after some caliber of a teaching career. The asst principal has a huge desk and presides (looks important) over the main room of teachers and their individual desks, which is his (literally "his") only activity. The principals are the guys who know someone higher up. Korean teachers rotate yearly in managerial positions--they are interchangable parts who change nothing and do nothing of significance or even of importance except to keep the machinery of "education" operating year in and year out (mostly out).
   In Thailand, the Thai managers of proprietary schools are long time and loyal employees from the teaching ranks, which is why there always are timetable clashes & conflicts at the beginning of each year or semester. It also explains why nothing ever improves or develops in curriculum, quality of faculty, methods etc. Farang mangers carry the water for the school owners. Some farang managers do it shamelessly, others try to appear to be in charge but fool no one, as hero points out. At the government schools I see merit and management positions and responsibilities as having some nexus but it seems more haphazard than it should be. At the one university I've taught, Chulalongkorn, managers were secretive, at the center of pervasive and endemic office politics, and stiff and remote. The Chula managers talk a very good game of modernization, lifelong learning etc. However, on my first day at Chula the coordinator in my faculty said specifically to me that "we don't use the word progress." It didn't take me long to know and recognize why they don't.

[bomha]

A few years ago, I lived next door to a real, professional public school teacher who swore she'd never go into management.  She took a little departmental chair once for two years, but that was all.  In secondary schools there, an assistant principal spends several years only being a disciplinarian to troublemaker students.  She got an M.Ed. in administration, just to have the degree and the pay rise, but never even sat for the test to be a licensed administrator.  She enjoys teaching, and she is very good at it.  Her old boss moved to another school, and the new principal was a total failure.  She moved to the boss' new school and loves it their.

[blackmail]

The manager, who got his position by stabbing someone else in the back.  Or the manager, who will "look the other way," because she has two illigitamate faces to feed and can't worry about getting another job.