Is It All Management’s Fault?
An article by Harvard Business Review titled, The Dangers of Hiring a Nice CEO (Elena L. Botelho, Dina Wang, Kim Powell), pointed out that certain management styles have a higher propensity toward project failure. The questions on management hence beget: Is it right to push the blame on management? Could there be other reasons for the failures? What can be done to save such situation?
There are three important criteria that can affect a team’s performance adversely, namely, Priority, Talents and Relationships.
According to the article, a ‘nice’ boss often caves into the wants of the team members in order to promote inclusivity. However, such situations create unnecessary obstacles against tight deadlines, budgets and resources. The team is often overwhelmed with many priorities but in fact, there is no real priority.
In my opinion, talents are the core resource of any team. Tolerating subpar performances from management can disappoint stronger performers as their work are left unrecognized, and thus, leaving emotional disgruntlement and ultimately, leaving the team and the company. This loss of talent is crucial in today’s age where the war for talent is immense.
Because of the fear of hurting employees, many of such bosses do not provide honest feedback nor allow discussions to be transparent to their subordinates. These bosses believe that saving the relationship and winning people over are crucial. However, studies have shown that in the long run, the team members will view the management as untrustworthy, and thus, affects the team’s success.
These are the so-called ‘niceness trap’ in the article, I totally agree with it. The article even gives four very practical steps for bosses to avoid falling into the trap and to become more effective leaders. Firstly, the bosses need to be aware of the misbehavior. Secondly, with experts’ help, bosses see the underlying motivations of their behaviors. It might be that they want to be liked or want to win respect as bosses. Thirdly, bosses are challenged to make changes. Lastly, they work towards adapting the effective behaviors. Once they correct themselves, their nature talents can become more powerful.
‘Nice’ bosses are not uncommon. However, the chance for them to realize their misbehaviors by themselves or with help from McKinsey is very little. Teams can, therefore, be left underperformed. Won’t the team member feeling uncomfortable when such bosses are leading the team? From the article, I noticed that actually, some team members are very frustrated with such bosses and some even choose to leave the team because of this. This made me think if the managers are not aware of their mistakes but the employees are aware, is it all management’s fault for project failures and team underperformance? Should the employee share some responsibilities? if you are already aware of this situation, besides complaints and leaving,
1. what other advice and solutions can be given to employee?
2. why don’t employee follow the advice?
3. why employees should follow the advice?
So that we can encourage employees to make efforts to help the team succeed together with the managers.
1. what other advice and solutions can be given to employee? I believe, if you have already figured out that the cause of team’s poor performance is from the management, you are one step ahead of your peers. You are sharp and smart in management. Or even, you are better than your boss. This isn’t uncommon. In such situation, there are a few options, follow or even cover your boss even though he is wrong, complain, leave, help them out, take their job, etc. I did some research and find another very good article. It provides excellent advice to help you “make most of the often frustrating situation”, i.e., firstly, in terms of the team and project, helping your boss, secondly, to continue working with him, learning other good things from him, e.g., social capital, and thirdly, seeking guidance from someone else for your leadership development.
2. why don’t employee follow the advice? in the cases listed in the article, however, employees didn’t follow the advice. They can be excused for they don’t know them. Nevertheless, are there situations they simply don’t want to follow the advice? For example, they want to see their bosses fail, they are politically bound not to help, etc. We should look at the underlying motivations or values for any behaviors and thoughts. Why do employees have such thoughts? There can be countless reasons. For example, the employee wants to take over the boss’s job so he believes his boss’s failure will make his dream come true. The employee might be in the set-up-to-fail syndrome. The relationship has already been damaged. The employee is told by the boss’s boss not to help out.
3. why employees should follow the advice? There is nothing wrong with the underlying values. The misbehaviors derived from the these might not benefit employees and even lead to an opposite outcome. Your boss’s failure might make you lose your job. This article gives an example. The company might values your boss more than you because you are only 1 year with the company but your boss has been there for decades. On the other hands, this article also gives examples of employees helping bosses out of difficult situations and were returned credits and favor. ‘If your boss is successful, there’s a greater chance you’ll be successful too.’
It is not unusual to have nice but not effective bosses. Instead of putting all blames on them, employees can take some actions to turn the situation around. It is advisable and wise to share some responsibilities with the team. Thanks Elena L. Botelho, Dina Wang, Kim Powell, Amy Gallo, Jean-Francois Manzoni and Jean-Louis Barsoux for contributing the articles.
References: Harvard Business Review.
The Dangers of Hiring a Nice CEO
What to Do If You’re Smarter than Your Boss
