Administrative Professionals Day was almost two weeks ago here in the U.S.  I'm glad it's on the calendar, as I don't think this day is purely a money maker for the greeting card industry, of which several holidays have been accused.  I think it's vitally important that we take time to thank receptionists, executive assistants, administrative assistants, and others who are both on the front lines of customer service, and who often times serve as the artery for personnel and workplace best practices information within organizations.

Yet, a press release by The Conference Board from last week and this Management-Issues article from today make the case that both individual companies' success and indeed U.S. economic competitiveness will hinge on managers' ability to, as Nic Paton from the latter site puts it, "balance the high sense of urgency their bosses put on them to do more with less while at the same time motivating and keeping their employees engaged in their work and in the organisation."

But considering managers have a decades-long track record in popular culture of being reviled if not feared, is this a Sisyphean feat?

I don't think so.  Just as there's a giant gulf between Bank of America's embattled CEO Ken Lewis and Bill Marshall, CEO of Phelps County Bank in Missouri (one of our Top Small Workplaces – and I'm not talking about company size or public/private split between the two enterprises), good managers stand out from poor ones like a beacon in heavy fog.

Good managers have been an incredibly important cog – maybe the most important one – in making our Top Small Workplaces tick.  Ryan Libby, who spoke at our workplace conference last year with his boss, Gentle Giant Founder and CEO Larry O'Toole, rose through the ranks of this East Coast-based moving and storage business since he was hired in 2002.  He now runs their Providence, Rhode Island location.

Ryan's story highlights a subset of employee engagement best practices that have increased the competitive advantage for many of our award-winning small firms: the ongoing premium on developing leaders.  Ask O'Toole, for instance, what the mission of Gentle Giant is, and he'll tell you that they develop leaders.  He says this before he talks about their "on paper" business that generates $30 million a year.

Similarly, when I interviewed Rackspace Hosting Chairman Graham Weston recently, he said their mission is not to deliver web-based computing services, it's fundamentally about creating promoters (people who gush about the company's "Fanatical Support").  He acknowledged that a big reason his company has been able to go from 1,000 employees since we named him a Best Boss in 2006 to over 2,600 today is because they have attracted and developed managers who are charged with – but more importantly, feel the deep desire to be – making customers' problems go away.

So with all the talk of how toxic some managers can be, let's take a moment – maybe even a whole day – to celebrate what they do right, and what a difference that makes to workplace team building.

It's not on my calendar as Administrative Professionals Day is, but might I suggest Wednesday, June 10 this year for such a timeout?  This is the day promoted by the Association of Professional Office Managers as Office Managers Day.  I recommend we make the focus more broad and open it up to recognizing all managers that day, whether they supervise one or 100 employees.

Do you think we need a managers day? Why or why not?