Is "seagull management" unfair to seagulls themselves?

The misunderstood “seagull manager”

Although the phrase “seagull manager” tends to be used in numerous cases in management, it is not an officially recognized business management term, such as, for example, Maslow’s theory on the hierarchy of needs, which is extensively taught to business school students around the world.

It is still rather an unofficial term, which has been coined by Kenneth Blanchard, when he attempted to portray a specific management behavior that is similar to what a seagull does when it approaches its food: it first hovers while staring from above and doing nothing, then rushes down towards food (the problem), makes some useless noise, and finally flies away as fast as it came, leaving only its droppings (unnecessary trouble) behind it for others to clear up.

But is this really the case?

First of all, I would like to point out that although seagulls are a nuisance to many people, their presence may provide some hidden benefits after all. For example, people seem to overlook the fact that seagull droppings are used as a main ingredient of the famous “guano manure”, which is a ridiculously expensive natural fertilizer due to its extraordinary nourishing properties for plants.

So, what does this mean?

As the saying goes, “Every cloud has a silver lining”. We should not limit ourselves to believing that everything is either black or white, since there are plenty of other colors that may apply better to a particular situation.

Therefore, while a seagull is seen as a creature that just causes too much trouble for nothing, nobody can deny that it is, in fact, a valuable bird, since its products (droppings and guano manure) can be utilized, and provide some serious economic benefit to people, which is not obvious in the first place.

The same could apply to the case of the so-called “seagull manager”.

Before adopting a specific “trendy” term, we should first investigate whether this term is a generic one that can be used in all situations, without any exception, because there could be an imperceptible line of distinction that can make things different.

I have personally experienced this situation more than once, when working for bosses who could easily be characterized as “seagull managers”. They showed exactly the same behavior that is characteristic of a seagull, and which has been described above.

It can be very difficult to try to maintain a good working relationship with such a person and not start arguing, because it can be really hard to understand whether he/she makes a critical observation that is genuine and refers to a real problem, or he/she just wants to make an impression, just like a seagull makes noise without any particular reason.

However, in my opinion, the management style that is reflected in this specific case is just a subdivision of the broader category that is termed as “authoritarian leadership style”, because an alleged “seagull manager” is, in fact, nothing more than an autocratic manager in disguise.

On the other hand, a real “seagull manager” can have a positive impact on a business, just like a seagull produces the seemingly worthless, but truly valuable guano. It is necessary to be able to draw a clear line of distinction between a “seagull manager” and an autocratic leader, and be prudent when attempting to assign any categorical characterization, which may not be true, due to myopic judgment.

In conclusion, a true “seagull manager” could rather be labeled as a mixture of a person in charge who helps only when needed, thus avoiding micro-management, and offering plenty of room for initiative to employees, which is characteristic of a laissez-faire boss. Finally, and contrary to common belief, a “seagull manager” can definitely obtain positive results through this particular form of managerial behavior, and these results may not be evident at first hand.

On the other hand, it could be argued that seagull management is an unofficial term that has been used lately in the workplace by both managers and employees, in order to describe a situation, where a manager “squawks” like a proper seagull, without having any real knowledge of the task that should be completed, requesting, however, top performance and results from his or her subordinates, regardless of any other considerations.

This, however, could be another misconception.

According to Wikipedia, seagulls, as a species, are characterized by a high level of communication among themselves, although they just seem to be noisy creatures to us humans.

Each and every single squawk seems to have a specific meaning, and serves a particular purpose, for example, giving an order, or showing anger against or love towards another seagull.

Indeed, squawking is a very effective method of communication, which seagulls seem to understand and follow.

Therefore, this poor creature, the seagull, has been wrongly become the culprit of literally every wrongdoing in business management.

On the contrary, I wish myself, and the same would definitely apply to other managers, bosses, and employees, that I had the ability to communicate as well as a seagull does with other seagulls. This could be perfect to achieve in both personal and professional life.

Seagulls have been unfairly victimized, because they are, in fact, highly organized birds that truly respect each other.

To be honest, every modern business or family that would like to consider itself as a highly communicative and smoothly-run group of individuals would be lucky to have a true “seagull manager” in charge.

Unfortunately, seagull behavior has been misunderstood in business management.

Nobody seems to care about the fact that if seagulls were humans, they would probably be top-notch managers, and/or employees, who would, inherently and instinctively, possess remarkable and unprecedented communication skills that we as humans can only dream of.

How would Sniff and Scurry from the book “Who moved my cheese?” compare to a “seagull manager”?

Kenneth Blanchard was the first to use the term “seagull manager” and he also co-authored the book “Who moved my cheese?”. Two mice, Sniff and Scurry, were among the main characters of the book, and as their names imply, Sniff could smell cheese from miles, while Scurry could run astonishingly fast to it.

Compared to the human characters of the book, i.e. Hem and Haw, the two mice were fast to move along with change, whereas the humans found it hard to come to terms with change.

Since they were fast to decide, could Sniff and Scurry be described as “seagull managers”?

No, in my opinion; because, although they could move fast in order to follow and adapt to change, this did not mean that their decisions were hasty. On the contrary, the two mice observed on a daily basis the amount of cheese that was available in the cheese station, and noticed a gradual decrease, so they were not taken by surprise when all the cheese had vanished.

On the other hand, a seagull manager does not take into account any previous information that is available on a specific issue under discussion, and just makes seagull-like squawks and movements to show he/she is truly and actively involved, whereas, in fact, he/she totally ignorant of the issue in question and inevitably makes irrelevant and wrong decisions.

Is David Brent from the UK TV series “The Office” a typical example of a “seagull manager”?

Personally speaking, the first example of a typical “seagull manager” that would spring to my mind, would be that of David Brent, the leading character of the UK comedy TV series “The Office”.

However, although David Brent was a really loud manager, whose voice and antics were bigger than his effectiveness on the job, he wouldn’t fit exactly the role of a seagull manager. Apart from his jokes (which only made him and his “assistant to the manager” laugh, while nobody else found them funny) and the sudden and unexpected changes in his mood towards his subordinates, colleagues, and superiors, there were not many occasions, where he would “fly in, make a lot of noise, dump on everyone, then fly out” in a true seagull manager style, as it was characteristically described by Kenneth Blanchard.

However, in a number of cases, like when it was arranged for an external trainer to visit the company and train the staff, or when there were minor incidents of “horseplay” among some members of the staff, it could be argued that David Brent acted indeed exactly like a seagull manager.

I think that, in order for David Brent to be officially called a “seagull manager”, the script of the series should have included more scenes with him entering into a decision-making process that would require the adoption of a more dynamic approach by him on more serious business decisions, rather than just dealing with minor “horseplay” incidents or small-scale employee relations problems.

Sources and further reading:

Seagull management

How seagull managers make everyone miserable

Do you have a “Seagull Manager”?

How to handle a seagull manager

Donald Trump is the epitome of a “seagull manager”

How to manage a horrible boss: The seagull manager

The David Brent effect – managers thing they are better than they are

Are You A Seagull Manager?