Don’t Allow Weak Managers in Your Culture - American Society of Employers - Mary E. Corrado

Don’t Allow Weak Managers in Your Culture

Workplace culture is more than ping pong tables, casual Fridays, and group outings.  One of the most important cultural aspects is management style.  If you have weak managers in your organization, the culture will suffer.  Employees will not feel valued, trusted, or successful.  Hire and develop strong leaders.

What is a weak manager?  I recently read an article in Forbes that very accurately describes a weak manager:

·       Someone who immediately looks for someone to blame when something goes wrong.

o   A strong manager doesn’t worry about the blame, they worry about how to fix the issue and prevent it from happening in the future.

·       A weak manager doesn’t appreciate ideas and input from their employees.  They are afraid the employee might have better ideas than them or appear smarter.

o   A strong manager hires strong employees!  They want new ideas from their staff and appreciate their willingness to try something new.  A strong manager realizes that they are only as good as their strongest employee.  Our keynote speaker from last week’s HR Conference, John U. Bacon, made an excellent point on this subject.  As he stated, “Don’t sell potential employees on the easy, sell them on the hard.”  You want employees who can handle the tough and have the skills to solve problems.  Hire employees that have skills that you might not have.  Your team will be stronger.  I follow the saying, “If you are the smartest person in the room, go to a different room.”

·       Weak managers manage through policies and don’t listen to their employees.  Everything is black or white to them – no grays.  They don’t build relationships with their employees.  Instead they lead by bullying.

o   One of the most important aspects of a strong manager is the ability to build strong relationships with their staff.  They listen to their team, encourage them, and coach them.  Bullying employees is not leading them.  Strong leaders do not lead with fear.  They lead with respect.

·       Weak leaders take all the credit for their team’s work.

o   Strong leaders realize that the team members in the trenches deserve the credit when a project succeeds.  Managers that try to take all the credit are weak.  Give your staff the credit – they deserve it.  And by doing that they’ll work even harder the next time.  John Bacon also spoke to this in his inspiring keynote last week.  As he stated, strong leaders never take the credit.  That credit will come in other ways.  Nothing speaks higher of a leader than a well performing team under his/her management.

I was recently speaking to a past colleague and was astonished to hear of the management practices of a large, local employer (who is a non-ASE member - I might add).  He was telling me that in his organization employees are penalized when the make a mistake!  Why would an employee ever take risks if they feel they will be penalized?  They’d be too afraid to make a mistake.  Installing fear into your team is not strong leadership. 

I’ve also had the experience of working for a weak manager in the past.  Although it was not a good experience, I definitely learned what not to do as a leader. This manager would intimidate employees, pit employees against each other, and would not listen to other’s ideas.  The culture suffered under this type of leadership and turnover was high.

As always, I love hearing your points of view.  Have you ever worked for a weak manager?  How did you handle it? With all the opportunities available to build strong leaders we all should be encouraging leadership development.  How to you promote and develop strong leadership in your organization?  Email me at [email protected]

ASE offers many classes for leadership development, including our 3-day flagship course, “Principles and Practice of Supervision” and the “Leadership Academy.”  For more information on all of our talent development classes, please visit our website.

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