I’ve had a great week this week, with some wonderful outcomes and I sometimes delight at being me. With a role that helps people achieve their potential, without any pre-conceptions or worries I am truly privileged . Indeed one definition read recently about leadership, stated that the good leader creates other leaders around them.
However, it’s Friday and feeling a little despair I worry over the future. I seem to deal with and experience some truly awful managers, management and actions in my day job, company visits and change programmes. Not all of course, and one exception this week one lovely Scots lady said that I had made a huge difference to a factory and more importantly to her in the work place. No more a greater compliment can a person like me receive. Indeed, comments like that are what energise my whole drive to change the world…. Well okay Managers, but the world is next.
However we must not forget there are more awful managers than good leaders.
A bad manager can take a good staff and destroy them. Causing the best employees to run and jump ship, and the remainder to lose all motivation and decay from the inside. We see this at Glamorgan Business School at the moment.
Just the notion that someone has been promoted to the position of Manager or Dean does NOT; mean that they are particularly intelligent, hard working, capable, thoughtful, astute, considerate, talented, open-minded, or worthy.
The problem I see in most organisations is that the person who is the most aggressive, socially inept, devious, expert manipulators and lacking morals gain promotion! …..and the very notion they have authority over you because they are expert in your field or well connected is again misguided. Look of course, you may be the exception from the rule if you are a leader reading this, but most are not! The bigger the organisation the more you will in one sense get-away with it and rise to the lofty heights of power. More so if it seems its an organisation in a “Public Sector” institution like, say a University. I think this is so, as a result of the confusion of roles and responsibilities. ‘Its not my job…its HR responsibility’ to sort out the problem managers, is something I hear quite often….
The sad truth is, that whilst most managers conform to the well-known living embodiment of the "Peter Principle" ... that is, they have been promoted to their level of incompetence. Most rise above this level and continue to do untold damage, simply those above are even worse than the one below. What’s worse is they may actually believe they are the manager because they are somehow superior, when in simple terms they are by any definition completely dysfunctional and suffer from some kind of learning disorder!
I suppose the lack of respect for some managers receive is a very serious problem that can make the life of the employees quite miserable. Indeed, research from various bodies tells us the damage these men and women deal out on a daily basis. We spend out a fortune on Counselling for employees, support for those victimised by these idiot managers and yet fail to do anything regarding the cause itself!! Do you think we have got it wrong? Or is it just me?
One thing I always bleat on about is democracy in the workplace. It has to be better than management…..well, it cannot be any worse surely!
Have a great weekend all you leaders....
