The other week we facilitated a workshop with a client business in apparent distress. Despite experiencing steady growth through the GFC due to the launch of some new and highly innovative products (and a lot of hard work!), it was clear that their good fortune would not be maintained if the ineffective leadership from its management team continued.
Instead of delegating non-managerial jobs, managers were doing them. Why? Because as the business grew with success and their staff increased, their management skills and capabilities weren't developed to manage a larger business. They still thought and acted as a small business in which management did everything. And when they did delegate, they delivered orders as ultimatums. Further, a lack of communication across departments created fragmentation and turf wars, thus encouraging a "we" versus "they" environment. It even got to the point where the business removed the word "division" from its terminology, just to eliminate the word's implications!
A few days later Brett came across the article, Now it's a job-seeker's market, which speaks right to the issue at hand for this business. The quote that most stood out to us, from Matthew Tukaki, chief executive of a recruitment agency:
"While most employers have come through the worst of the GFC in better shape than expected, there could be a time bomb waiting to go off if employers do not urgently address critical people management issues in their workforces."
That was it! That was this company – with its poor management skills – down to a tee: a time bomb waiting to go off.
As the saying goes, success hides many warts. Because this business had been quite successful through the GFC, the ineffective leadership from its managers was allowed to continue and ultimately foster its underlying problems.
Now, as the rest of the country recovers from the GFC, the warts are rearing their ugly head and that time bomb is well and truly ticking.
Ineffective leadership is certainly not uncommon but it sure is unnecessary. We've seen from years of experience that leadership is an acquired skill; there's no reason that anyone can't learn to manage effectively with the reinforced application of a leadership training program. And if your manager won't acquire these skills, then they need to be confronted and dealt with!