Managers Need Peer Support Too
Managers spend most of their workday supporting others by translating business decisions, responding to employees, coordinating time and energy across teams, solving problems, and keeping information moving. When pressure builds, managers are often expected to absorb it without passing the stress to the people around them. That expectation can leave managers responsible for unresolvable stress coming from several directions at once, all by themselves.
Being the one who has to both absorb the stress and manage it without passing it along to anyone can get pretty lonely. A manager can spend an entire day surrounded by their team and colleagues across the business and still have no one to talk to openly about the business decisions, performance limitations, and competing demands they are managing in real time. That kind of isolation can be incredibly stressful, and that stress can influence how managers make decisions, especially when they are trying to relieve pressure quickly without adequate systems or enough transparent information to do so.
Peer support gives managers another option. Other managers often understand the pressures of the role because they face many of the same demands alone in their departments or functions. But it is those other managers who share information and systems that can support their peers in making better decisions or more effectively coordinating the time, energy, effort, and attention of their teams.
Managers Are Not Meant to Work Alone
A manager's success or failure depends on working with executives, employees, and other managers. Their work also depends on other managers doing their jobs well due to the interconnectedness of relationships among the manager community. Disruption occurs when one team pushes a deadline, forcing another to change plans, delay projects, or abandon well-established systems. When one manager sits on information, another cannot make a good call because they lack the context they need.
Managerial peer support helps managers build relationships so they can compare notes, share information, and work through problems that cross team lines. That becomes especially important under pressure because a manager does not have to solve every problem with only what is visible inside their own team. Other managers often have information, experience, or resources that lead to a better decision for everyone involved.
Healthy interdependence means managers know each other well enough to be honest about limitations, constraints, and tradeoffs. They can check in with each other before a problem becomes a crisis and coordinate when their teams depend on one another. Effective managerial relationships can take the pressure off any one manager to always have the answer and reduce the infighting needed to get things done.
Peer Support Requires Boundaries
Peer support works when managers know where their own authority ends. You can support a peer without directing their employees, working around them, or using an executive relationship to influence their team. Clear boundaries let managers collaborate without taking over other managers’ responsibilities.
Information needs boundaries too. Managers can share reasoning, process, expectations, and operational concerns while still protecting what needs to stay confidential. That boundary lets managers exchange useful information without putting employees or the organization at risk.
Employees notice how managers treat each other, too. When a manager asks a peer for perspective, admits what they do not know, or works across team lines, employees see those behaviors in practice. A manager who expects that kind of openness from their team should be willing to model it.
Build a Manager Community
Organizations can facilitate managerial peer support by creating regular opportunities for managers to work through real problems together. Small supervision circles, peer mentoring, clear handoff protocols, and shared resources give managers a place to trade information and ask for support before pressure turns into isolation and isolation turns into turnover. Managers also gain access to people who understand the responsibilities and limits of the role.
Keep Developing How You Manage
This article draws from The Trauma-Informed Manager, where I explore peer support as part of building healthier relationships between managers, employees, and the systems they work within. The free Manager Journey has more information for examining how you manage and the relationships you rely on while doing that work. You can start whenever you are ready.
