Great Managers Need Two Types of Maturity
To be a great manager, you need to be mature.
That doesn't mean you have to be old.
I've seen plenty of seasoned managers who still can't do the basics. And I've seen plenty of young people with management ability galore.
No, maturity is something different. It's a certain development out of the error-filled, blind-spot-laden first stages of something. In this case, managing people.
And like I said, sometimes maturity does come with experience, but it's certainly not a straight correlation. There’s no time limit for how long managers can hang out in the immaturity zone.
There are two basic types of maturity a manager needs: emotional and professional.
Emotional Maturity: The Heart
Emotional maturity is about people: understanding them, working with them, getting the best from them.
Emotionally immature managers miss the obvious signs. They don't notice when someone's performance drops because they're struggling at home. They can't tell the difference between the employee who does great detailed work versus the one who shines in client meetings. They put people in the wrong roles and wonder why results suffer.
They also lack self-awareness. They get defensive when questioned, take feedback personally, and have no idea how their mood affects everyone else. People stop bringing them problems. Good performers start looking elsewhere.
Emotionally mature managers ask better questions instead of jumping to conclusions. They listen to what people say and what they don't say. They figure out what makes different people tick, sometimes using tools like DISC or CliftonStrengths. Most importantly, they know themselves well enough to control their reactions when things get tense.
You have two ears and one mouth for a reason.
Professional Maturity: The Head
Professional maturity is about process: the systems, structures, and frameworks that make organizations run well. It’s managerial efficiency and rigor.
This means, among other things:
Setting clear, measurable goals that drive the right behaviors
Making sound decisions based on data rather than hunches
Building the right amount of process: enough structure to create consistency but not so much that you suffocate agility.
Professionally immature managers don't understand the systems required for teams to operate. They have random meetings with no agenda. They set vague goals or change priorities every week. They don't know what technology tools their team needs or how to use the ones they have.
They also often lack basic competence in what their team actually does (whether it’s sales, marketing, engineering, HR, etc.). They can't tell good work from mediocre work and they might approve budgets for projects they don't understand. Their team loses trust in them because they clearly don't know what they’re talking about.
Professionally mature managers build the infrastructure teams need to succeed. They understand their team's work well enough to make smart decisions about resources and priorities.
The Four Types of Managers
Given these two types of maturity, you can categorize managers into four basic buckets:
The good news is that both types of maturity can be developed.
Emotional maturity grows through self-awareness, feedback, and practice under fire.
Professional maturity comes from studying what works, learning from failures, and building systematic approaches to common problems.
You can't fake either type, and you can't succeed long-term with just one.
But if you master both, your team will thank you.