I am a bit overwhelmed with the quality of responses to the dilemma posted by Exhausted this past Friday. If you are an email subscriber, you should visit the site to read the comments. There are some very thoughtful suggestions at both ends of the spectrum.
Recap:
Exhausted is faced with a decision about a direct report who is resistant to his management of her work behavior. Last Friday’s post has the details.
My response:
As I listened to your description of events, I only heard about your efforts and your failure to manage this person to your way of thinking and behavior.
People don’t want to be managed. You can manage a process, you can manage a machine, but you cannot manage a person. Which is kind of weird, because we think that is what managers are supposed to do.
People don’t want to be managed, but they will follow a leader. If you take your manager hat off for a bit and replace it with your leader hat, what would you do differently?
You see, the only way to manage people is with pressure tactics, control systems, threats of punishment, job descriptions, verbal and written warnings. You have tried all of these and you are left with a poor attitude and a resistant direct report.
But with your leader hat on, what are the new tools you have to build trust and gain commitment. People will sign-on to a world that they help to construct.
Here is the bad news. For the past four months, you have managed this person into a state of resistance. You may have ruined her. And you may not have the patience or the time to repair the damage. And the damage may not be repairable.
By all appearances, this person may be headed for an inevitable separation. And separations happen. You will then get a chance with a new person. As a manager (leader), you will get a second chance. Take a look at your hat, make sure you are wearing the right one. Whenever I hear about this kind of situation, all crumbs lead back to the manager. That would be you. -TF
I knew you wouldn’t let me down, Tom. Straight and to the point. Though you did soften it up at the end (did you see the Apprentice tonight? Funny how that Project Manager got a second chance…and only because the one who got fired did it…had NOTHING to do with the PM).
Maybe one of these days you’ll make it out to L.A. or at least Vegas to do one of your seminars. I’d love to meet you in person, shake your hand, buy you a beer and thank you for spreading your wisdom and light.
Cheers!
Tom,
I agree with what you said about “people not wanting to be managed,” but I wish there was a better definition for the term “leader.” We tend to think that the attributes of a leader are all positive and engaging, but in grad school, it was stressed many times over that a “leader” is anyone who has followers.We can cite many instances to show this to be true. Obviously, this employee didn’t recognize this manager as her leader.
I was looking forward to your response Tom. Thanks.
Most people think that leadership skills are only required from executives and upper management; to develop vision, policy, long range goals, etc… But you are right, leadership should be required from middle management too; it ultimately comes down to understanding your resources’ expectations and qualifications; then use them to advance the project.
Hopefully, it is not too late to fix the problem above, if not, maybe she could transfer to another project or division in the company.