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During the weekend, I went to a bookstore and was shocked by the number of books that claimed to guarantee quick and simple solutions to managing people. I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at one that offered “Six Easy Steps to Becoming a Great Manager.”

Management is not only difficult and complicated, but according to Richard Farson, a former CEO and author of “Management of the Absurd: The Paradoxes of Leadership,” it is full of paradoxes that leaders at every level must recognize and address. Farson explains that “human organizations are complex and require us to turn our thinking about management upside down.” Below are some of insights Farson offers.

• Effective managers are not in control. Ineffective managers are obviously not in control either. People cannot control other people in any organization. Managers rely on others, so they inevitably are vulnerable and dependent. Farson said, “Management based on techniques of control and manipulation cannot succeed. ... But that hardly means the manager is lost. Their strength is not in control but in other qualities — passion, sensitivity, tenacity, patience, courage, firmness, wonder.” But employees only will respond when they know they are dealing with a genuine person, not someone who is “managing” them.

• The more important the relationship, the less skill matters. Whether a child grows up to be happy or successful depends on how sensitive, honest and loving his or her parents were. Children tend to inherit the qualities that define their parents — for better or worse. When people are asked what made the biggest difference in their childhood development, they rarely say “skilled parenting” or “effective multi-tasking.” They describe who their parents were as people and give examples that supported this image. For example, one might describe a caring father who sits down in the grass to plays dolls with his daughter after a long day at work.

The same dynamic happens with relationships at work. People learn and respond to what we are. When employees are asked to describe managers who affected them the most, they mention managers with traits such as being genuine and dependable. But when people describe former employers as distant or intimidating, the relationships generally are seen as meaningless, even if the employers gave them raises or promotions. Farson said that in all relationships, it matters who you are, not what you do. Granted, being caring and genuine often leads to acts of kindness, but the acts in and of themselves don’t create the meaning.

• Nothing is as invisible as the obvious. When I created our business department’s Web site to provide students with information about our program, the first thing I asked students wasn’t what information they wanted or how to make the site easy to navigate. After all, why would they know anything about what they wanted? “Deeply held ideologies, tunnel vision, selective perception, deference to the judgment of others — these are all enemies in our efforts to see what is really going on,” Farson said. James Watt conceived of the steam engine after watching steam escape from a tea kettle. This was considered breakthrough thinking and was not obvious to anyone but Watt. It was fairly recently that security system companies thought to ask robbers how they would prevent a building from being robbed. Sometimes, the obvious is not so obvious.

• Listening is more difficult than talking. Too often, when I’m speaking with someone, I spend much of my time thinking about what I’m going to say next instead of really listening to what they’re saying. Real listening requires effort and focus. To hear someone clearly requires that you care about what the other person has to say. Active listening isn’t a technique that should be used to manage others. Farson said, “People are more likely to change when we reverse the flow of communication — that is, when people are not talked at but when they themselves have a chance to talk.”

• Every strength is a great weakness. What’s more, weaknesses can be strengths. For example, “Fearfulness can lead to appropriate caution. Intelligence can fuel caustic, destructive criticism.”

• Morale is unrelated to productivity. If you think having happy or content employees translates to soaring productivity, it doesn’t. High morale exists in both productive and unproductive work environments. You can have a group of people who are quite jovial but have no interest in improving product standards, exceeding monthly quotas or taking on additional work. On the flip side, you can have employees who are disgruntled about work conditions but still pride themselves on producing top-notch work.

There are no easy answers in management. I wish there was a book that legitimately offered six easy steps to becoming a great manager. Unfortunately, management is complicated because people are complicated. The best we can do is realize that simplistic methods for managing people don’t work and try to understand better the challenges inherent in leading others.