Recently, a fellow colleague (who runs a similar company) and I waxed philosophical on management styles, and how they tend to differ once a new employee joins the staff. I've been thinking about it on and off for days now, and the only conclusion I've really reached is that, for better or worse... it is what it is.

Mostly, it's just hard to define "better" and "worse." As the manager of one employee, your attention is relatively undivided, and your intentions are grand. Even your deliberately un-grand intentions are grand. You just don't realize how grand they are until the new employee actually arrives, and suddenly all of your resources are divided. Time, patience, and energy, now allocated to two individuals--well, three, if you remember to include yourself--suddenly seem in very short supply.

The main "shortcoming" in our case, if it really is such, is that the New Guy is often left to find his own way, much more so than our first hire ever did. And as a manager, I'll say that I never did micromanage K.Lo, preferring to let her work on her own quite a bit. I believe it is most important for employees, while knowing that The Manager is there to assist whenever necessary, to eventually become self-sufficient. My memory is also short; I can't say for sure that N.Lo is any more or less "neglected" than K.Lo. However, in a moment where K.Lo requires assistance and N.Lo chimes in second with a request for help, N.Lo has to hang tight. Whereas K.Lo might not have had to do so when she was that new to the job. Add in the third element of Managerial Duties, including Administrative, Financial, and Household Tasks, and both employees may find themselves left to work it out on their own for x amount of time, until such time that I am able to assist.

I second-guess my managerial decisions regarding resource allocation quite a bit. Yet I have some level of confidence in them as well, because for one, I am doing my job(s). And I am doing them the best I can. Also, I don't want to micromanage either employee. I do want them to learn to work through situations on their own. So they are given that opportunity, even if it is due to my own shortcomings in Not Being Superwoman. Maybe they will become stronger for it, learn a new skill, become more adept at their job on the whole.

Either way, it is pretty well out of my hands. I suppose I could do things differently, i.e. drive myself crazy thinking about it, convincing myself that the New Guy will suffer under this new managerial style, where K.Lo did not. I really think, though, that doubting and overthinking one's own competence as a manger would be the real detriment, and to all of us.

Ten weeks in with our new employee on board, and we are pretty well into a groove here at our company. As each employee grows and attains new skills, as they learn to work together, things will surely change, and I suspect in a lot of ways they will improve. Perhaps I may even get back to that place of grand intentions--and at the very least keep up with such things as timely progress reports for every employee. For the moment, though? We do what we have to do. The results will be what they will be.