John has many attributes of a successful and effective manager. He does have a lot of strengths, but some areas that he needs improvement. He demonstrates leadership, and is a bright and very driven individual. His approach is very detail oriented and borderline perfectionist. He has been very hands on and tries to be involved in the major decisions that are made. He also has a very good understanding of the business, and has maintained good relations. As far as areas of improvements, he needs to understand his own management style. Since in the last year he has delegating more and tried to be hands off, the unit has suffered losses. That, coupled with the incident where he gave directions to Short, reflect that he needs to communicate better and make them understand what they are supposed to be prioritizing correctly. Additionally, he feels he is a good delegator, but in fact he is not. He ends up making most of the decisions, which affect him in two ways: lack of leadership and ownership on the team, and having his hands full all the time.
John is not a very good communicator. One quality of a very good manager is to communicate effectively and anticipate how the person who is being communicated to will receive the information. Everyone is not at the same information level, and things could fall through the cracks. The review of the HR results by Short is a perfect example where Short did not understand the urgency and what was being demanded carefully. I think he should have looked on the information collected by HR himself, and met with Short for 10 minutes to talk in per4son what is needed. Not always is email the best way to communicate what needs to be done. But, as it is clear, he is always rushed. He needs to manage his time better rather than shuffling at the end and cutting it close. It is definitely a trait of type A people. To improve his communication