Surviving Poor Management 12: 5 Critical Mgt. Derailers

This continues our series to help all of you working under poorly managed companies

Profiles International posted a great presentation on SlideShare. They titled the presentation, Five Critical Management Derailers: Symptoms and Remedies. We recommend you read the entire presentation for yourself. Nevertheless, we will summarize the remedies and let you study the symptoms of an “At Risk"” manager on your own. The ideas expressed in today’s post come directly from the SlideShare.

1. Poor Interpersonal and Communication Skills

Symptoms

• Always seem to be feuding or polarizing the organization
• Authoritarian, cold, aloof, arrogant, or insensitive

Remedies

• Understand the true root cause of conflict
• Understand the manager’s management style and motivation
• Help the manager understand his own management and communication style

2. Inadequate Leadership Skills

Symptoms

• Team consistently fails to meet expected goals
• Team members are disengaged, frustrated, and quit

Remedies

• Clarify the team’s purpose and goals with the manager
• Help the manager understand his people
• Help the manager understand his leadership style and motivation
• Provide feedback from multiple constituents

3. Resistant to Change

Symptoms

• Manager expresses frustration and skepticism about change
• Manager doesn’t change the attitude even after concerns are addressed
• Manager reminisces about the “way it was” & does things the “old way”

Remedies

• Understand the manager’s appetite for change
• Help the manager understand his natural aversion to change
• Ensure that the manager is focused on the new priorities

4. Inability to Deliver the Expected Results

Symptoms

• Results are consistently below goal, especially measurable ones
• Manager blames others or avoids discussions about goals
• Team unaware of how they contribute to the organization’s goals

Remedies

• Clarify expected results and goals
• Understand the manager
• Inspect what you expect

5. Inability to see beyond their functional silo

Symptoms

• Unwilling to communicate outside the unit
• Makes decisions that benefit his/her unit but hurt the organization
• Hoards information that might benefit others outside his unit

Remedies

• Establish clarity
• Include the manager in at least one cross-functional team
• Establish at least one cross-functional goal for the manager
• Monitor the manager’s progress

Wednesday we highlight how you can see even poor managers in a better light

This blog will improve as you submit comments, questions, and experiences. We will answer your questions in future blog posts. Please submit your comments and questions so we can answer them.