As HR professionals, you have surely heard many employee complain about how bad their managers are. They can't delegate, they don't provide feedback, they demand unrealistic goals and deadlines from their subordinates ... Are these only empty complaints, or serious warning signals? Why are there so many bad managers in companies? This question was recently addressed by Alison Green, the author of a popular management blog on the U.S. News website. She pointed out the following reasons.
1. Promoting based on employees' excellent performance
The role of a manager and a specialist is significantly different. A specialist who becomes a manager needs management skills. A manager's job is very demanding and requires a broad range of skills.
2. Inadequate or not enough training
One-day or two-days of training for new managers is not enough. No training is like throwing the manager into water and hoping he will learn to swim. Further, the training must be focused on new managers specific assignments in the company, a too general training is not helpful.
3. Managers' mistakes are more visible
When an employee makes a mistake, often his colleagues or nobody notices. Sometimes, his manager is aware of the mistake, but it usually ends there. In the case of a manager, the situation is different, all his subordinates are effected by his mistakes.
4. Senior managers can't recognize a bad manager
Often there is a lot of confusion about what a good manager should be and how to measure his contribution. To do this, you need to start from scratch by defining clear success criteria for the management role.
5. Senior managers may recognize a bad manager, but, for a long time, do nothing about it
They say that having a bad manager is better than having none. They tend to overlook bad managers' mistakes and postpone searching for new ones. In both the cases, the result is the company is missing a capable person.
6. The company is only interested in certain aspects of a manager's success
For example a manager might be a good strategist and earns the company a lot of money, but is unable to manage people. The company should not only focus on his strengths. A manager who can't manage people, will always be a bad manager.
Do you agree with these reasons for the existence of bad managers in companies? Can you think of any other reasons? What are you doing to avoid these problems in your company?
-kk-