What signals a good manager?

When you look for a good car mechanic, you might look at reviews on Google, or other social media. You might weight the number of reviews, and how real the reviews look. Based on what you read, you then decide to try out the mechanic or not.

When job seekers look for potential companies, they consider Glassdoor reviews. Does the company look good or not?

But when candidates think of their next boss, what review sites exist?

Radical ideas:

• What if managers showed up to interviews with a list of references of previous direct reports candidates could call for a reference?

• What if LinkedIn had a way to have people managers rated? Would-be employees could see star ratings and reviews of people managers to determine who they want to work for.

• What if previous employee engagement surveys are shared with potential hires? Managers would be responsible for sharing their thoughts on areas for improvement and what employees could expect.

Employees like to ask about culture, and managers usually have nice canned responses. “We’re inclusive, we celebrate this and that, we’re getting shit done, blah blah blah…” but how many open the books and say, “this is who people say we are, and here are some of our scars, and here’s what we’re proud about.”

I realize I am ruffling the feathers of conventional wisdom.

I’m quite okay with that.