Why Managers Fail

I have come to the belief that so many management challenges can be conquered if we chill out and be flexible. I am not saying we should not be strong. But I have noticed that managers who do not succeed are often taken down by their own interpersonal rigidity.

Management, by it's very nature, is a people-centric job. People, by their nature, do not want to be bullied or belittled.

So why is it that we can get so stuck in our ways?

Are we defining success as being right versus enabling people to do their best work together?

I have never - really never - had to let go a manager because he or she did not have the technical skills needed to do the job.

I have never let go a manager because he or she failed to be obnoxious enough.

I have never let go a manager because he or she was a slacker.

The top Five Reasons Managers Lose Their Jobs:
#1 - Fail to build positive and trusting relationships.
#2 - People don't like working for him or her (micromanagement the #1 complaint).
#3 - He or she does not get things - the right things - done.
#4 - Is uncoachable. We try to help but they don't take help.
#5 - Is full of bull - does not have the courage to be honest about what was going well and where things were not going well.

And yet, in interviews, I still have managers who will tell me how proud they are to be micromanagers. I still have managers who tell me that their analytical ability is most important (always wrong). I still have people who think it is OK that they end up cleaning house wherever they go (sure, some assignments call for personnel changes, but if it happens again and again, I look at the manager as the cause).

I had a wake-up call several years back. I was told that I was not a good team member. This feedback was a gift because it enabled me to get off my imaginary high horse and get on the bus with all the other smart, hardworking people.

An aside:
Have you noticed fads in interviewing? Recently, I have noticed that everyone I am talking to is emphasizing how collaborative they are. But when I ask what that means, the answers are often shallow remnants of what collaboration really is.  If you tell someone you are collaborative, be ready to explain this, because there is a good chance the interviewer is hearing it again and again.

Hi, my management style is collaborative.

Yeah, right, if we had as much collaboration going on as people tell me they do, we might have a shot at world peace and the end of hunger.

Comments

[PierG]

I often see another BIG point:
#6 The manager and his directs have a DIFFERENT perception of what they are doing and how they are doing

If you listen to a boss or a team member explaining a project/a task/the vision ... you get deeply different answers

PierG
http://pierg.wordpress.com

[lisa haneberg]

Yes, poor self-awareness is a big problem. Thanks for adding this to the list.

[Chris Young]

Lisa - great insight on an important issue! I've selected your post as one of our Rainmaker 'Fab Five' Blog posts of the week which can be found here: http://www.maximizepossibility.com/employee_retention/2008/06/the-rainmaker-f.html#more

Be well!

Chris Young

[lisa haneberg]

Thanks, Chris, for the link and referral!

[Dan]

Thank you for this post. It gets at the real problems. Best to you, Dan

[Will Pearce]

The first four of your top five are classic symptoms of an "overemployed" manager--meaning that he doesn't have the capacity to process the level of information complexity inherent to the position. (#5 is primarily a character issue, but even it may have some roots in the "overemployed" problem, too.)

The trick is (as you've implied) to make better hiring/promotion decisions that include an informed assessment of a candidate's capacity for the target level of work, not basing those decisions just on his abilities and past performance.

The management theory that enables this kind of assessment is called "Requisite Organization" (RO). You can read up on it at PeopleFit's Learning Library (www.peoplefit.com/Learning-Library/Learning-Library.html).

[lisa haneberg]

Thanks for the link, Will!