Own a smartphone? Or does a smartphone own you? For more and more people, it's the latter!

All managers should be connected pretty much all the time.  Really?

I recently asked a friend if he made judgments about people, based on the kind of cellphone they used.   What my colleague said about the conclusions he arrives at regarding whether a person uses a "smartphone" or not was this: "I think that anyone in management at a certain level has to be connected to the greater reality by a smartphone--otherwise they either aren't doing their job, or they don't even realize that there's an unwritten expectation for them to be connected, in-touch, and communicating with others...pretty much all the time."  

While I understood what he said--and wasn't really surprised--I was still unprepared for the report I ran across [in the May issue of FastCompany, "Work-life balance digitally destroyed:  One in three permanently connected to employer"] of a study that revealed that one in three people are virtually grafted to their smartphones 24/7/365!  Here's the money paragraph:

Web conferencing company InterCall...reports that 30% of U.S. workers who employ technology as part of their jobs feel the need to maintain a digital link to their employer at all times. Weekends and vacations, too. It's not even just about curiosity or misplaced work-place loyalty--25% of employees say that they feel like their job security depends on remaining available digitally beyond normal office hours, and 17% say that if they don't check in while on leave, they'll suffer management's displeasure. Furthermore, 50% of survey respondents said that arranging time off work was becoming much harder.

Frankly, I'm not inclined to see this matter the way my very bright, savvy colleague does--even though I respect him and his accomplishments a great deal.  I think many of the managers I see who use a smartphone miss the point of what it means to be a thoughtful leader.  Here's the other point of view:  

1.  Being tied to a phone of any kind keeps you "at-work" far longer than is frequently ideal--or productive.  People who work all the time either have, as we often say, "issues," or they're in over their heads--due to incompetency, over commitment, who knows what.  I realize that key management positions are frequently very demanding and sometimes require long hours "on duty"--but not all the time, otherwise there's a problem. 

2.  Being overly oriented to the here and now, keeps most people, and especially managers, from being mindful of the indefinite future--and making good decisions about that.  The tweeting, chatting, and eMessaging [reading and sending] frequently serve to distract from the "bigger picture" of what's called for and what's to be handled down the way.  Most menial jobs have an immediate task orientation; by contrast, good leaders should be thinking about what's best or will be called for down the road in a way that tweets can only detract from.  

3.  Feeling the need to constantly be in touch with a lot of employees points to a manager who frequently wants to oversee and control the work and activities of others that's unhealthy--people he or she needs to trust, rely on.  Good managers cultivate and then depend on the oversight and sound judgement of others to handle matters--even critical ones--because they really can't be on top of in terms of all the details and considerations; thinking that a smartphone can substitute for the development of subordinates who are adequate to make the right decisions is a delusion.   More than few managers I know who have a smartphone in grabbing distance are, to a lesser or greater degree, control freaks; I automatically know I can't always rely on them to give me their best judgments at any point in time because their heads may actually be somewhere else.  

4.  A manager's apparent, constant smartphone access signals a message that there's only partial attention to the conversation at hand.  When I'm with others who plunk a smartphone done on the conference table--even with the ringer turned off--tell me effectively that their heads' are trying fundamentally to be in two places; when they look at the screen--even if they don't say they don't need to handle the matter right then--I know that they're less than 100% involved with me or the issues we're involved with; also, I immediately wonder whether they might very likely prefer to be somewhere else or with someone else!  Everyone knows that it's socially impolite when in a conversation to keep looking at one's watch to check the time--the same applies to scanning smartphone devices, but most act like they don't know it.  

This isn't intended to be a screed against smartphones--they're here to stay and should be used--but not like some of the people I see who fancy themselves good managers and leaders use them. The FastCompany report makes me even more apprehensive about the whole matter than I was before my conversation with my trusted friend.  
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