The truth about bad managers
Nick Tucker, Advisory Lead
People often see a bad leader as a caricature—loud, aggressive, and shouty, with the sole purpose of making their employees’ lives difficult.
In truth, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all management type that covers all the subtle behaviours that can deliver a negative impact on the workforce.
The ‘bad manager’ caricature
In our work with a leading financial services firm, we analysed the employee experience data for high performers who were about to resign. The analysis found that the most common lead indicator of regrettable turnover was a poor relationship with their manager. It confirms that the old adage is true: people don’t leave organisations, they leave bad managers, or at the very least the bad relationships with them.
See, humans are wired for safety and belonging; we’re designed to connect. The inverse experience can have an almost immediate impact. As soon as an employee interacts with an experience that threatens their safety, their ability to think critically, be creative, and perform in their role is negatively impacted. Over time, a shadow culture can develop and the organisation will struggle to meet performance targets, innovate, and retain good people.
“It confirms that the old adage is true: people don’t leave organisations, they leave bad managers.” Nick Tucker, Advisory Lead
This is why the role of Human Resources is so important. They have the task of building and embedding a framework that can support attraction, retention and development of good leaders.
It involves developing a leadership capability framework for your organisation that classifies the capabilities and competencies required to be a successful leader, building a robust recruitment process that covers hiring for leadership capability and cultural fit, and embedding the right framework and systems to support the development of leaders who reflect your company values and connect to your purpose.
Leaders should also create a space where employees feel empowered to provide solution-focused and actionable feedback to their manager. We Are Unity’s research into a leading logistics company found that individuals who felt psychologically safe were 153% more likely to exceed performance expectations than those who did not. The key to this is psychological safety, which requires high levels of task conflict (where individuals challenge ideas, processes and tasks), and low levels of relationship conflict, (the toxic conflict whereby people attack individual characteristics and preferences).
Employees can use this simple three step model to provide feedback:
Share a factual observation of the behaviour: “in the last meeting you spoke over me three times”
Explain the impact: “I did not get the opportunity to share my proposal”
Provide a suggestion: “in the future, please make sure that everyone in the room has shared their opinion before making a decision”.
This will avoid amygdala hijack so that the relationship can be developed into a more positive interaction between both parties, as well improve its overall impact on the team. You might find that a ‘bad manager’ is not so bad after all. By taking a step back from your own emotional response, and opening up constructive communication around the issues you may find that the triggers can be resolved.
Unfortunately situations do at times arise which must be escalated to the CEO or Board—including cases of harassment, misconduct or unethical behaviour. However, it’s the grey areas that require more focus to ensure the right level of conflict is being driven within the business to support growth and continuous improvement.
We Are Unity’s research into a leading logistics company found that individuals who felt psychologically safe were 153% more likely to exceed performance expectations than those who did not.
Ultimately, it’s time for our collective focus to shift from spotting a bad egg, to spotlighting the profile of a good leader. What defines a leader that acts in alignment with the attributes and capabilities required to deliver success in your specific business? There’s no such thing as a perfect leader—but there is a perfect leader in the context of your organisation and your strategic goals.