Cross-pressure for first-line managers
When leadership becomes an impossible balancing act
How do you lead with authority, overview and human understanding – when everything and everyone is pulling in one direction?
Many managers – especially first-line managers in production – find themselves under constant cross-pressure today: They have to deliver on ambitious goals, comply with extensive rules and standards, and balance considerations between different actors such as employees, customers, quality controls and shop stewards. It is not just a question of busyness and many demands, but of values that pull in different directions – and which must be weighed and negotiated in a complex reality where the answer is rarely clear-cut.
But what do the best leaders do when they find themselves in this cross-pressure situation? And how can HR and senior management better support them?
We delve into this in this webinar with Charlotte Dadelborg Thomsen and Anders Trillingsgaard from UKON. Together, they combine the latest research from an ongoing PhD project and many years of practical experience – and give you concrete models and actionable insights.
About the research project
Charlotte is currently working on her business PhD, where she is investigating how first-line managers in one of Denmark's leading pharmaceutical companies experience and handle cross-pressure in their daily work. So far, the project has shown that cross-pressure often arises in areas of tension between, for example, values and management logics or between standardization and local judgment. These tensions can create significant managerial burdens.
Previous research has often focused on leaders' individual coping strategies, but now Charlotte's project examines how to develop collective strategies for leadership that can create a space for sharing dilemmas, developing a common understanding, and coordinating the most optimal decisions. In other words, how to make leadership a shared practice rather than an individual responsibility.
This webinar is for those of you who want to learn more about:
- What cross-pressures do leaders typically experience and what it's really about
- What models can we use to understand it?
- What strategies do leaders use to resolve, process and accommodate cross-pressure together? What happens specifically? What do the best do?
- How managers, HR and top management should and can help especially first-line managers in cross-pressure situations
Sign up and learn much more about the research in the area of cross-pressure among managers and how you, as part of HR or top management, can support the balance of first-line managers.
Speakers:
Charlotte Dadelborg Thomsen, Psychologist and industrial researcher, UKON
Charlotte Dadelborg Thomsen is a psychologist from the University of Southern Denmark. She is currently working as a business researcher at UKON in connection with her business PhD, where she is investigating the cross-pressure of first-line managers in manufacturing companies. Charlotte's primary research interests are relationships and dynamics, and more specifically the dynamics between manager, employee and organization. Charlotte has worked as a visiting and clinical psychologist at Prescriba, where she has, among other things, conducted crisis interviews, taught crisis management and been responsible for coordinating the company's crisis response. She has also advised external companies on work-related stress and crisis management.
Anders Trillingsgaard, Leadership Author & Executive Advisor, UKON
Anders Trillingsgaard has been part of UKON for more than 18 years. He started as a Management researcher in connection with his business PhD from Aalborg University, and is now a Leadership Author and Executive Advisor, where he deals with management and business development, career advice and talent development, among other things. He has in-depth insight into – and experience with – the development of management teams, and is very interested in creating more leadership power in new and different ways, which he does, among other things, in the form of his lectures and as an author. Anders is also a licensed psychologist and has more than 20 years of consulting experience as well as international experience from, among other things, the Center for Creative Leadership in North Carolina, USA.
Read more about our theme Leadership Development or all the other NOCA themes HERE.