Horrible bosses or horrible workers?

Trending News: Corporate managers now blame the lack of productivity in their organisations on their workforce

Why is this important?

The earlier the manager/leader discovers the root of the problem, the better it is for the organisation

Long Story Short:

There are no horrible workers but horrible bosses!!!

Long Story

There are many unputdownable books on leadership and corporate management
and they all say the same thing about the leader/ manager being the beginning and the end of the corporation. Think about it, everything begins and ends at the desk of the leader; from the strategic planning to the tactical planning, to the operational planning and to the contingency planning. Directly or indirectly, the leader is responsible for the output in every department; definitely, some of these tasks are delegated to various departmental heads, eventually these heads report to the manager.

So, let us have a scenario, Company ABC manufactures and sells ladies wears, unfortunately, the company is not making sales, 10 chances to 1, the sales manager will be called out, everybody suddenly becomes interested in the affairs of the Sales department. However, the manager of Company ABC faced with such situation should understand that the problem really might not be about the Sales manager or about what the Sales department is doing or not doing (as the case may be).

To begin with, the manager should ask himself what the goals and objectives of the company are (you never can tell, he might have forgotten), after reminding himself of what these objectives are, it is essential that he finds out whether every one working with him understands these objectives, because if the people on the workforce of the company do not key into the vision of the company, then it is a lost battle ab initio. Every company has a culture which must be taught and evaluated from time to time.

The manager needs to conduct what I describe as an inside out evaluation of the company starting from the manager himself! Could it be that he is not doing enough as a manager? Did he hire an incompetent person to head the sales department in the first place? It could also be that the manager is killing the incentives of the staff (he could be one of the bad bosses that never sees anything good about their employees or he does not deem it fit to encourage the workers). In essence, it is necessary for the leader/manager to evaluate himself first before ‘playing the blame game’ because eventually, he is going to be held accountable. It does not really matter whether or not he has lazy or incompetent workers, no one will understand that because the clients/customers seldom know those workers, the board, shareholders, investors all interact with the manager and not the receptionist or one of the sales representatives, they did not appoint the leader as the Chief Executive Officer so he can say the gate man is the reason the company is having a bear market.

It is usually this way because the manager is expected to be the think tank of the organisation (if not the think tank, at least he should be smart enough to have a think tank). In my country, the President will always take the blame for every action or inaction of the government, because the people have entrusted him (through their votes) with their lives and properties, he is the repository of the welfare of the people (after all, that is what the theory of social contract preaches). At that level, the President is not expected to blame or complain, he is expected to think, plan and execute!!!

A very recent example will be the case of Jose Mourinho, I like him a lot, I like his guts and style and I am a big fan of Chelsea FC, but there is a fundamental problem with him which the owner of Chelsea FC cannot put up with, and that is the fact that he (Mourinho) is not a very good manager of persons and he loves playing the blame game. The owner understands the principle which says, ‘change the man in charge and the corporation will change’, it is all about business, if I am losing money, I have got to change the manager in charge, we really do not expect the Club to let go of all their players (very expensive thing to do), so the good risk management strategy will be to let go of one person i.e. the manager (which is a cheaper option, can lead to the overhaul of the philosophy of the team and eventually, better performance of the players). When the Volkswagen emission scandal happened last year, Matthew Winterkon, the CEO said in his resignation notice: “As CEO I accept responsibility for the irregularities that have been found in diesel engines and have therefore requested the Supervisory Board to agree on terminating my function as CEO of the Volkswagen Group. I am doing this in the interests of the company even though I am not aware of any wrong doing on my part.” In essence, it was not about what Winterkon did, it was about the inactions and actions of his workforce, but he had to take responsibility, even when Matthias Muller was appointed in his place, many analysts were concerned about his performance too because he has been in the system and worked with Winterkon too, such is the effect of realizing the need to change a difficult situation within a corporation by changing the manager.

After the personal evaluation by the manager, it is necessary to evaluate the performance of the various heads within the corporation, then the business strategy, it is possible that the problem is not the staff but the manner in which the staff go about achieving the objectives of the corporation. Is the company keeping up with market trends? Is the company diversifying? Is the company developing new products? Nokia could not keep up; or refused to grow, what happened? Microsoft acquired it, very simple; you cannot be in the technology industry and not be aware of market trends. You cannot do today’s job with yesterday’s methods and be in business tomorrow. That was the sin of Nokia. There cannot be talks about changing or the implementation of a new strategy if the leader does not think it is necessary, in other words, it is also the responsibility of the manager to make and effect any necessary change in the corporation.

The manager has the responsibility to always improve every aspect of his life, this process is referred to as Continuous Improvement Skill, the manager cannot afford to stop learning, if he does, the company will suffer in the long run and vice-versa.

Own the Conversation

Ask the big question: What if the workers are intentionally sabotaging the efforts of the manager?

Disrupt your feed: Depending on rare circumstances, some workers can really be horrible

Drop this fact: According to the Gallup Organisation (interviewed 2 million workers that left 700 companies) and the Saratoga Institute (conducted 700 exit interviews with persons who had just left their jobs), the primary reason those persons left their jobs was because of their bosses!!!

Damilola Oyebayo is an expert in leadership and management development. For over 3 years, Damilola has helped many leaders and aspiring leaders improve their leadership capabilities. Damilola is also considered one of the world’s young motivational writers and speakers and he is the founder of Reality Check, a consulting column that helps readers discover their dreams, improve their skills and lead value-oriented lives.

LinkedIn: @ Oyebayo Damilola, Twitter: @Oyebayod