Featured

Question Of The Month

When an employee chronically does not do the job assigned to him, how much coaching should the leader do to try and rectify the situation?

Dis/Trust In Management, And What To Do About It

Managers today, by and large, get a bad press. Not as bad as politicians perhaps but pretty unfavourable nonetheless. The adage that people don’t leave companies, they leave bosses, is held to be largely true and is backed up by long lists on the internet of managers’ faults and failings. In short the majority of managers are seen to be doing the manager job poorly – if not worse than that. As a consequence, while managers may have positional authority they lack the trust, willingness and loyalty of their people.

Why We Need Dependable, Not Radical, Candor.

In her book, Radical Candor, Kim Scott presents a classic two-by-two matrix of management types. She argues that great managers care personally and challenge directly, via radical candor.

The alternatives are:

• Manipulative insincerity: when praise is given not because it is genuine, but for another motive or agenda.
• Obnoxious aggression: what it says on the tin.
• Ruinous empathy: being too nice, being afraid of being called a jerk (according to Scott, responsible for 85% of management mistakes).

For more information regarding the above, please
E-mail  events@legitimateleadership.com

Question Of The Month 

By Wendy Lambourne, Director, Legitimate Leadership.

Question: When an employee chronically does not do the job assigned to him, how much coaching should the leader do to try and rectify the situation?

Answer: When an employee chronically does not do the job assigned, there is obviously some onus on his leader to coach him towards rectifying the problem. However a leader/employer cannot be expected to continue repeated coaching ad infinitum if the problem does not resolve.

Eventually it may become clear that the person has lost the confidence of his leader/employer – who no longer believes he can do the job. As a result there has to be a parting of the ways.

On what basis should that parting be? To answer this, the appropriate question is: why did he fail in the job?

If he genuinely is not capable of doing the job, there is a case for a severance package. A lack of capability is not the person’s fault. People do mistakenly end up in a role believing that they are capable of performing it and then find that this is not the case. Employers also make wrong appointment decisions for the same reason.

The right thing to do is to acknowledge that a mistake has been made and support the person in moving to a role which matches his capability.

If the person did not succeed in the job because he was not willing to do the job, however, then he should be dismissed. In practice, this often means he resigns without a package. To give the unwilling person a package would be tantamount to rewarding someone for his malevolence. This is clearly not appropriate and should not happen.

To submit your question,  email info@legitimateleadership.com 

Article: Dis/Trust In Management, And What To Do About It

By Wendy Lambourne, Director, Legitimate Leadership.

That employees trust those in charge of an enterprise is vitally important for three reasons.

Firstly, the more employees trust management, the more prepared they are to go above and beyond in pursuit of the organisation’s objectives. There is a cause-and-effect relationship, in other words, between trust in management and employee willingness.

Secondly, a precondition for sustainable organisational change is high trust in the relationship between leaders and the people they lead. When trust is high even radical change is doable. When trust is low – or worse, when there is distrust between the two parties – change is inordinately difficult if not impossible to effect.

Thirdly, trust in management increases trust between colleagues in general in the workplace. It fosters collaborative rather than competitive relationships. Because people are convinced that others have their best interests at heart, they put less energy into protecting their own interests. Instead of ‘politics’ and ‘silos’ they focus on furthering the bigger interests of the team. They not only deliver on their own responsibilities but deliberately set up others to succeed. In short, employees will go the extra mile, embrace change and put self-interest aside to the degree that they trust those who exercise authority over them.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE BY CLICKING HERE

Article: Why We Need Dependable, Not Radical, Candor.

By Dr Richard Claydon, A Leadership And Culture Management Expert And Chief Cognitive Officer Of EQ Lab.

COMMENT ON THIS ARTICLE BY RACHAEL COWIN, LEGITIMATE LEADERSHIP: Claydon’s concept suggests an additional layer of unconditional care which aligns the model of candour even more closely with that of Legitimate Leadership. Legitimate Leadership says that true care requires that a leader must like, or at least find things to like, about all their people. In workshops, this always generates a lively discussion. We need to truly understand those who work for us as individuals with their own personalities and skills. Our role as leaders is to help each of our team to realise their unique potential; what is required by and best serves each person will differ. Giving in this way engenders trust, which in turn empowers teams to best meet the multiple challenges facing business.

THE ARTICLE: In her book, Radical Candor, Kim Scott presents a classic two-by-two matrix of management types. She argues that great managers care personally and challenge directly, via radical candor.
The alternatives are:

• Manipulative insincerity: when praise is given not because it is genuine, but for another motive or agenda.
• Obnoxious aggression: what it says on the tin.
• Ruinous empathy: being too nice, being afraid of being called a jerk (according to Scott, responsible for 85% of management mistakes).

Scott illustrates her moment of epiphany by detailing a conversation she had with Sheryl Sandberg, after Sandberg, then with Google, had watched Scott present to Google’s CEO and founders on the performance of the product she was leading.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE BY CLICKING HERE