What Makes a Good Manager?
Bentonville, Arkansas, a once-quaint rural community in the Ozark Mountains, is home to 60,000 residents. Bentonville also happens to be the corporate headquarters of Walmart, the largest private employer in the U.S., with $650 billion in worldwide revenue in 2023.
Sam Walton founded his Walton Five and Dime in 1950, and his heirs still control 50% of the public company, through trusts, foundations, and direct holdings.
Visitors to Bentonville can tour the stunning Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, founded in 2011 by Walton’s daughter Alice, or interact with Sam Walton’s very own hologram at The Walmart Museum.
For Walmart—or art and culture—fans who may want to stock up on doughnuts during their time in town, there are several neighborhood markets, including one on North Main Street. Until about seven years ago, one could view a prominently placed silver photograph of Sam Walton in that market, and read about the key to his business mind that’s called the Entrepreneur’s Creed.
Walmart has removed the sign, but it can still be found on Reddit’s Late-Stage Capitalism internet site.
Walton’s creed includes these maxims: “I do not choose to be a common man. It is my right to be uncommon—if I can. I seek opportunity—not security. I do not wish to be a kept citizen, humbled and dulled by having the state look after me. I refuse to barter incentive for a dole; I prefer the challenges of life to the guaranteed existence; the thrill of fulfillment to the stale calm of Utopia. I will not trade my dignity for a handout.”
The durability of the Walmart PR machine to sustain a brand based on EDLP (Everyday Low Prices), thereby enticing lower income Americans to buy its products and services, continues unabated.
In a March New York Times article “Walmart Strives to Train Managers in Compassion,” the Times devoted considerable space to chronicling Walmart’s Manager Academy, a weeklong training program in Bentonville for Walmart managers from across the country. About 2,200 are expected to complete the training this year.
Pointing to the difficulty of “navigating shifts between in-store and online purchases, higher worker turnover, and sometimes unruly shoppers” that today’s Walmart managers face, the company recently raised base pay for store managers to $128,000. They’re also eligible for stock grants of up to $20,000.
High-performing Walmart managers now can earn more than $400,000 a year, the Times reported.
One post-pandemic tip from the academy was to reinstate the “Walmart cheer” at the beginning of every in-store meeting, because, as one manager put it, “it lightens the mood, and it’s something that Sam Walton did.”
A month after the Walmart story was published, New York Times columnist David Brooks offered a vastly different management approach.
In the column, “In Praise of Middle Managers,” Brooks refers to a business school mantra of “ethical leadership.” Brooks wrote about “daily acts of consideration” that mean more to workers than goal-setting pronouncements. A leader’s “smallest gestures—the casual gifts of politeness, the little compliment, the cold shoulder of thoughtlessness”—resonate loudly with employees.
Brooks used his old broadcast boss Jim Lehrer, co-founder of what is now the PBS NewsHour, as an example. When Lehrer thought something an employee said was smart, his eyes “crinkled with pleasure.” If Lehrer found a comment or supposed insight to be crass, “his mouth would turn down in displeasure.”
Those nonverbal cues were all the motivation that Brooks needed. He admitted that “for 10 years I chased the eye crinkles and tried to avoid the mouth downturns.”
As a trial lawyer who has defended managers’ decisions for several decades, I have learned to recognize the kind of manager who will do well on the witness stand.
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Even under the heat of cross-examination by an ex-employee’s lawyer, a manager who genuinely and consistently treats employees—especially the non-performing ones—with respect comes off as “honest” and “fair” to a jury or judge.
Brooks painted this kind of good manager as one willing to do “uncelebrated work.” Such leaders assume, in his words, “a posture of joy,” where the manager is judged “not on his competence, but on his warmth.” That type, Brooks would no doubt surmise, may not even have to start the team meeting with a cheer.
