People don’t leave organizations, they leave their managers’ is a statement beaten to death over years. Let me make it clear, I am not here to argue otherwise, but to expand the debate a bit. So, let me start with a question. How come these bad managers get chosen as managers in the first place, and then not just survive, but thrive in most of the organizations?
The answer is that organizations have all along taken a myopic view to this issue and while it helps organizations in short run, as they scale the issue eventually threatens the existence of the organization itself.
The startup trap!
Let’s consider what happens at a start up whose business is picking up and the organization is scaling. The founders feel compelled to move those people into management/leadership roles, who have been with them from the beginning. After all, they are the ones who believed in the vision when there was no money on the table. They helped ship the v1 of the product, or went all out to make that first contract a success. They have to be rewarded for being loyal. Right?
Wrong! As many founders find to their dismay.
The cracks start appearing soon enough, and more often than not, people reporting to such an manager start squirming and sending out signals to top bosses. While founders can see the shortcomings, they are still hopeful that these newbie managers will learn soon and it will be a smooth sailing thereafter. In some cases serendipity takes over, and the newbie manager learns to be a tolerable manager, while in others its ends in founders having to salvage situation by having to ease out the manager out of his role (and sometimes, unfortunately, organization as well). The decision is not easy as the person may have significant knowhow that’s crucial for the organization leading to a no-win trap. Eventually, seeing no change in status quo, the people reporting into the manager start moving out crying ‘bad manager’. The person, because of his criticality would continue to ‘grow’ in the organization for quite some time to come.
The corporate shenanigans!
With larger organizations it is not much different! Typically they end up promoting people who perform exceptionally well in their functional responsibilities, as first time managers. More often than not, it is in alignment with the career aspiration of the candidate. What happens at smaller organizations, is often repeated here as well, and the unease in that manager’s team soon becomes palpable. But many large organizations have found a workaround to this. As soon as someone is promoted to being a first time manager, they are made to through a set of training’s about ‘being a manager’. Belief is that once the person has gone through the training’s, he is good to go. Admittedly, quite a few newbie managers learn the basics of team management, and turn into tolerable managers and working is smoother for their teams. The ones who are not willing to learn even the basics, are eased out of the organization, or move back to a functional role. All good! Well no. The challenges start cropping up when these managers, a few years down the line are moved into a larger leadership roles and now have other mangers reporting into them.
To illustrate it better, lets consider John, who got promoted into a senior managerial/leadership role recently and now has other managers reporting into him. Now, unfortunately for John, his direct reports (being managers) have also gone through the same training’s about ‘being a manager’. They can easily see through what motions John is going through, and also know how to get rewarded for right behaviors (after all wasn’t that covered in the training so that they can encourage right behaviors in their team members). Now begins the fun. Since John’s direct reports know what will get them noticed, rewarded and would help in career progression, they start focusing on doing only and only that. They know exactly what John is looking for in what they do. They also know what John believes to be an exceptional behavior. They are clear what they need to deliver to get noticed and make sure that John catches them doing right things, and making right noises. In short, instead of their team, their focus is now on upward management because they know that’s how they will grow in the organization.
Did the penny drop yet?
Let’s step back a moment!
Wouldn’t John have be inclined to do the same when he had become a manager for the first time (and undergone same training’s). You bet! That’s what he’s been doing all along! And that’s how corporate games begin! The wheels are set in motion right up to top levels of an organization. Your ‘bad manager’ knows what the organization is expecting from him, because the organization taught that to him it in the first place (and then continued to reward him for same).
Flipping the coin, now let’s look at so called ‘good managers’. People, with whom we have loved to work and would want to work again. Didn’t they also (possibly) go through the similar growth path (or same training’s) as others? What makes them different?
More often than not, you’ll find such managers/leaders driven by a strong belief and conviction in their own abilities and understand the ‘training’ augment those abilities and provide them a path/tools to execute their roles better. They invest their time and effort towards the betterment of their teams rather than focus on just their own career growth. Their internal moral compass acts as the driver to do things the ‘right way’. They’d be like that irrespective of what organization they work for. It is not that they are not hard task-masters, or do not get ‘things done’, but they do it with a holistic understanding of business needs vis a vis their team needs. Not with the narrow focus of self-progression. They are unlikely to over-commit their teams, or drive them crazy. They understand the strengths and weakness of their teams and ensure that same is in sync with the organizational needs. It is not that such managers never ‘fire’ under performing employees or push others beyond their comfort zone. They do, but before that they will make sure that the employee is really not performing’ and has been given fair chance. They will also push their teams, make them stretch, but at the same time be fair and provide the air cover, should the team need it. You’ll find that such managers to transparent, unbiased and of high integrity and have the temerity of walking the talk (and sometimes even out of the organization if their teams are not being given their due). Also, probably, the weirdest thing of all is that they will not feel threatened if you, as a team member aspire to their position/role. They might even mentor you towards same. If you are lucky to have such a manager, make sure that higher ups in the organizations know about her, for more often than not, she is unlikely to toot her own horn.
So, next time if/when you leave a ‘bad manager’ take a look deeper at the organization culture, and if you see patterns, do let them (the organization) know that the ‘bad manager’ was encouraged to be like that because of the culture of the organization.
A successful ‘bad manager’ within an organization is most likely the by-product of the acceptable ‘organization culture’, and it’s high time we call out the ‘culture’ of the organization as the root cause!
If the organization culture is right, there will be no successful ‘bad managers’!
Your views?
A few readers wanted me to balance this article by talking about ‘how to avoid getting into/come out from such an situation’. Since it would make this blog too long, I have put my thoughts here (Good Organization Culture…).
