MICHAEL DEMPSEY - Cranfield University

Modes of management - styles
I always tried to avoid reading the fine print because if you get
down to reading the fine print and you get those stakeholders
together and say "the rule book says this", you are close to
saying "you are right and you are wrong." I always thought that
it was better to try to resolve the conflict without getting into that
position and having to make a judgment. (Interviewee A)
These inclusive approaches are echoed by another manager in more
conceptually structured terms:-
There are overlapping circles of interest and it is getting to the
central core, knowing what the central core is and influencing
that and trying to build it out so that you get a consensus on
what you are trying to achieve. If you can usually get the central
core on board you can usually bring the others in as well. The
process is networking around to get majority support for a
particular approach and the networking is done initially with the
core group and you identify who the other stakeholders are that
you need to bring on board. (Interviewee E)
There are other examples of inclusiveness, of working with interest
groups at national and regional level. One manager talks of herself as
being a go between, a facilitator and explains:-
Well there has to be a resolution. It's a way of negotiating, isn't
it? The reality of negotiation is somewhere in the middle, getting
an outcome as opposed to not having an outcome, that is the
aspiration. Whether it is settling a case, or negotiating it -- a
grading, anything. (Interviewee F)
There is, indeed, a significant impression left by this evidence that
UNISON managers make use of some core trade union skills in
managing stakeholder boundaries.
Modes of Management
8.18. Management style, arguably, is affected by a range of factors. Many of
these will be personal factors, some of them by personal values, which
is one of the reasons why the issue is being examined here. Some are
organisation specific, influenced amongst other things by cultural
factors. In UNISON, there is an attempt to influence managers to base
their management style on a specific concept, that of emotional
intelligence:-
We are now running management courses for all our managers -
- I have made them mandatory for everybody, including myself,
courses which relate directly to Unison style of management. If
you want a word for it, it is emotional management; this idea that
you control your emotions in managing people and actually
getting over to everybody who supervises any staff that there is
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