When our line managers are struggling, they may think it’s the business, the way the role is set up, or that their team’s making things so hard for them. As a learning and development or HR team it can be tempting to think they simply need some management training. 

But the solution may lie closer to home; they may just need to take a good look at themselves.

We’re all unique. We all have our unique way of seeing the world. You and I could both be looking at the same thing at work and yet see something completely different. 

There are those pictures you see online that if you look at it one way it, for example, might be an image of an old man and then, when you know what you're looking for, you suddenly see it a rabbit. 

The same is true for things that happen. Two people can be in the same meeting but describe what happened, how it went and how someone behaved completely differently. 

The glasses managers wear

We all wear a unique pair of imaginary, invisible glasses that filter how we see other people, the world and the things that happen in it. 

The glasses are imperfect and can often give us a slightly distorted view of the world. So they create real problems for our line managers in the workplace. 

our brain needs a way of navigating and making sense of the world to protect us

They can get in the way of building productive working relationships, put unrealistic expectations on what's needed from them as a manager, or avoid situations completely. 

This happens because our brain needs a way of navigating and making sense of the world to protect us. It needs to know what’s good, what’s safe and what might upset us or put us in danger. And to do that, it builds up a picture over time of what the world looks like. 

Making sense of the world as managers

Think of it like a video camera recording everything from the moment you’re born. This includes the things that go well, those that don’t, the people we meet, relationships etc. 

It's noticing and recording how we reacted to these events; and how they made us feel. But you don’t notice because it takes place subconsciously as part of the brain’s automatic everyday routine.

This entire process creates the assumptions and beliefs we have, the way we feel about certain people, specific events and what we expect to happen in certain situations. 

For example, 

• chats with the boss never go well; 
• if people are not happy after a one-to-one, I’ve done something wrong; or
• disagreeing is a bad thing. 

It's how we think the world is and the way things work. It’s this that forges those invisible glasses that we wear.

Because these glasses determine how we see things, they can influence our behaviour and how we act and react at work. 

For example, one of your beliefs may be that to be a good manager you need to be an expert in your area and know more than your team. This belief can make it hard to ask questions or seek support for fear of looking incompetent.

We don’t even know we’re wearing them

Here’s where the big problem is. Because our invisible glasses have been created by our brain subconsciously as part of its natural and unseen processes, we don’t know we’re wearing them.

We don’t realise we’re seeing an out-of-focus and distorted view of the world, which is limiting our behaviour and, in many cases, holding us back from being the best manager we can be. 

By noticing their glasses, they can start to see when they might be impacting their thoughts and behaviour.

It can stop managers from having that difficult conversation with the underperforming team member or from tackling that strategy paper the CEO has been waiting for. Perfectionism, imposter syndrome, fear of failure can all come from our invisible glasses.

The good news is, just like the rabbit hidden in the picture of the old man, once you start to look for your invisible glasses, you start to see them.

This is how you can help your line managers. By noticing their glasses, they can start to see when they might be impacting their thoughts and behaviour. This awareness helps to show how the glasses may be impacting them in their roles and find ways to adjust the lenses by creating new ways of seeing and approaching situations that serve us better.

How out of focus are my invisible manager glasses?

Here’s a short exercise you can try to help you become more aware of your invisible glasses and how they might be getting in your way.

• Write down one thing you think is true about the workplace. It might be that you need to know everything about your area to be good at your job or perhaps, if someone is upset, it means you’ve done something wrong. Or to be heard you need to be assertive. Maybe even that assertive is aggressive. 
• Why do you think this, where has this come from?
• How much evidence do you have for this? Be as honest as you can. What might you be assuming?
• Now look again, what do you see now?