Bad leaders. I’m sure we’ve all had a manager in the past that wasn’t the best. Whether it was how they spoke to you, provided feedback, checked and double-checked your work, deliberated about your holiday allowance, or maybe, they just didn’t do anything at all!
While these can sometimes feel like small things, they add up. This leads to employees becoming unhappy and dissatisfied at work. The feeling of dread on a Sunday evening, counting down the hours until they clock off for the day, and ultimately high staff turnover. Studies show that 43% of workers have left a job at some point in their career because of their manager and 53% have considered leaving or changing roles because of their manager.*
Most of us want to do our best.
We believe that 99% of people are not bad people. Most of us get out of bed every morning and want to do our best. However not every manager has the skills, tools, or experience they need to lead effectively and are unable to unlock the potential of their team. The way they act and show up every day is a display of their underlying values, beliefs, and motivations. Put bluntly their actions are to do with them, not you.
All too often people are moved into management positions after performing well in their executional roles. Promoted for their hard work, overnight they find themselves with a team to ‘lead’. The problem is, being good at executing and being a good leader are two very different things.
Where does the problem really lie?
Often leaders are promoted without training or support. They may get told how to document their 1:1’s and how to approve holidays, but very little else. Many find it challenging and are out of their depth as they’re no longer responsible for just their own deliverables but now for their teams too.
As they navigate this new chapter, they realise (or in some cases don’t) that they don’t have the necessary skills or experience to lead effectively. Their own thoughts, feelings, and beliefs, including self-doubt and insecurities, are then projected through their management style.
Now to be fair to new leaders, they’ve been moved into a people manager role and find themselves swamped. Between personal issues, problems with other departments, changing business priorities, and training new hires, it can often feel like a lot of fixing everyone else’s problems and never getting on with their own work.
Some can make or influence change, but often working in a corporate culture, there are limitations to what can be controlled or impacted. The result? Every time they’re having their team 1:1’s, they’re gathering more problems and action items, and their teams feel like you aren’t delivering or making the necessary changes.
It’s a lose-lose solution! The leaders feel overwhelmed, unsure, and unsupported and the employees don’t feel listened to or heard. This starts to cause friction, and frustration, leading to morale issues. Ultimately resulting in a lack of motivation, counting down the hours, and high staff turnover.
This is just one of many scenarios. It could be that the new leader is unsure of what they’re doing so they start focusing on the things they can control, they worry about the value they are adding with their team now executing on their behalf. This is where they start to control the things that they can, like checking others’ work or checking holidays.
We could go on! But instead of berating bad leaders, and writing them off as bad people, what we actually need to do is help them.
How can we help them?
First, we need to ensure that they are aware of what is driving their everyday behavious and actions. They need to be conscious of what is going on in their subconscious mind. When the subconscious becomes conscious they become aware of their motivations, values, and beliefs. They understand why they act and show up the way they do. This is the basis for making real and lasting change.
Not only is this a skill we need to build and unlock in leaders but we also need them to know how to do the same with their own teams. Teaching leaders that they don’t need to solve every problem, but instead, support their teams in solving and coming up with solutions to their own challenges.
If every workplace had widespread access to coaching, the impacts would be far-reaching. Not only would our leaders feel more supported in their roles, but they’d also have greater awareness of their own behaviours, and how their underlying values and beliefs influence them. With greater self-awareness comes better decisions and actions. In turn, positively impacting all those around them. Not only would this self-awareness bring behavioural changes, but teaching coaching skills to these leaders would ensure the ripple effect of positive change continues throughout the organisation.
It all starts at the top. Remember bad leaders aren’t bad people, they just need support and as an organisation leader, It’s your job to provide them with the tools and resources they need to succeed.
* https://www.peoplemanagement.co.uk/article/1755785/two-five-employees-quit-bad-manager-study-finds