Seagull

                                             


 What is a Seagull Manager?

There’s no need to decode an acronym here—Seagull Managers are pretty much exactly what they sound like. They’re people who tend to be a little bit removed from the day-to-day work 
 on a project, so they occasionally swoop in, make a lot of noise, leave a big mess, then swoop out again, leaving the team to clean up after them. 

Why are Seagull Managers dangerous?

Like many other dangerous animals, Seagull Managers often have good intentions. When 
 they swoop in, they’re often trying to accelerate a process or “save the day” with their idea. 
 The problem is that they often lack context and nuance, and they take away a team’s agency and ability to find solutions on their own. 

Seagull Managers in the wild

You might see a senior VP of engineering, for example, who walks in one day and tells the team, “I thought about this problem over the weekend and wrote some code for you.” Their goal is to help the team, but because they have a bird’s-eye view rather than an on-the-ground perspective, they might be bringing in technology that doesn’t work within your infrastructure.

Dr. Travis Bradberry, author of The Seagull Manager, reports there are real dangers to this type of management. Employees whose managers often use Seagull-type behavior are 30% more likely to develop coronary heart disease. Employee disengagement and dissatisfaction is directly tied to company performance since it takes considerable time and money to hire replacements for employees who leave. So much for those good intentions!

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