It is a commonly held
belief that line managers represent the main reason for employees leaving or wanting
to leave their employer. This assumption, supported by the findings of several
research studies, is underpinned by the idea that the person with whom employees
mostly build, develop and maintain relationships within an organization is
their direct manager, who is indeed in a position to strongly influence
employee engagement and eagerness to go the extra mile and exercise
discretionary effort.
This concept was firstly,
aptly summarized by Buckingham and Coffman (2005) in the aphorism “Employees
leave their managers and not their employers” and later reinforced by MacLeod
and Clarke (2009), who suggested that “people join organisations, but they
leave managers.”
Mismanagement, bias,
lack of consideration and respect, the inability to inspire and empower individuals,
effectively communicate them the business vision and provide clear direction are
just some of the ingredients of the recipe for management failure. Inasmuch as
the idea behind the dictum “Employees leave their managers and not their
employers” is clear and worth being backed up, management is not the fruit of
inheritance, nor is it bestowed for acts of great athleticism. Managers are
appointed by their employers, who should offer management positions only to the
individuals who have showed to really have the characteristics and exhibited
the behaviour required to effectually fill this crucially significant role.
Employers should hence take full responsibility for their management actions
and behaviour. Depicting employers as the victims of their managers as if these
have nothing to do with their identification and nomination, and therefore with
what they do, would definitely represent a massive blunder.
More often than not,
organizations appoint as managers individuals who possess superior technical
skills and a considerable level of expertise in their field. Despite it is
widely acknowledged that it cannot be established a causal relationship between
technical expertise and management capability, to wit: an outstanding
professional does not necessarily also is a good manager, employers seem to
continue ignoring this circumstance. It can be thus argued that a knowing doing
gap persists.
At the outset, individuals
are lured by an employer brand, corporate culture, reputation and value
proposition, but whether not supported by consistent appropriate management, the
fascinating effects produced by these corporate features are soon drastically destined
to vanish into thin air, overshadowed by the employee experience. Under such
circumstances individuals would believe that the employer walks the walk, but
doesn’t talk the talk.
When proposing the
appointment of new managers, executives are clearly acting in good faith, but
they might have not gained a thorough view and understanding of their nominees’
traits, capabilities and behaviour, especially under different circumstances and
in a different environment. Most likely, they just appreciate these individuals
for their technical knowledge and expertise, do not taking heed of the
disastrous consequences the wrong appointment of a manager produces. All too
often, employers, that is to say HR professionals, are then forced to hastily
put in place a series of initiatives so as to put newly appointed managers in a
position to carry out their new role. HR support in these cases is paramount,
but its involvement in the process should invariably precede not follow the
appointment of a new manager
The introduction of
practices clearly establishing and outlining the path employees must follow to
be appointed as managers and how this route interrelates and combines with the
organization’s succession plan would clearly help to dramatically minimize at
worst and avert at best the risk of appointing the wrong individual for the
role of manager. At times, it may rather be a problem of appointing the right
person at the wrong moment, that is to say the individual who has the potential
to fill a management position, but who is not ready for that yet.
To keep pace with the
incessant process of change nowadays affecting every organization, the need for
talented individuals to take more responsibility may arise anytime and, worse
still, suddenly. Whether individuals having the right traits and potential are
not ready to take additional responsibility, the negative consequences will
certainly make an impact on their direct reports, but also on themselves. Appoint
managers and then try to put them in a position to properly and effectively play
their role is not clearly a methodology likely to pay off. It is essentially a
matter of timely planning; rather than a reactive a proactive approach should be
hence definitely favoured.
The positive effects
yielded by appropriately developed succession planning are indeed twofold –
firstly, it enables employers to detect and classify the key and strategic
roles existing in the organization, and secondly, it urges employers to timely identify
potential successors. The identification of people who are deemed fit to fill strategic
and management roles should be followed by a period of preparation, hopefully
experiential learning, enabling these, the moment arrived, to be ready to take
over management responsibility.
It clearly emerges
that succession planning of its own does not suffice, it should be indeed conducted
in combination with talent management and employee development practices. The
identification of the potential successors in fact will not secure businesses
the talent these require whether, once identified, individuals are not assessed,
trained, prepared and tested on the roles these will be called to perform in
the immediate, not-too-distant or distant future. The development path prepared
for each individual will clearly be different according to the role each employee
is due to fill, but organizations should never overlook the need for
individuals to be prepared and able to carry out different roles and not
necessarily a specific, identified role. The ever-quickening pace change occurs
may indeed require sudden, unforeseen changes of programme. Talented
individuals should hence be invariably ready to perform well and yield positive
results under any circumstances including, of course, first time circumstances.
HR is growingly focusing
on the idea of employee experience, but it is glaringly obvious that any
employer efforts and bids to provide its staff an excellent employee experience
is doomed to miserably fail whether not supported by the organization
management. The underpinning component and funding pillar of employee
experience practices in a business should be hence definitely represented by
the quality of its management, which can clearly make or break individual
engagement, motivation and sense of belonging.
Findings of a recent
research study conducted by ADP UK, The Workforce View in Europe 2018 (ADP,
2018), reveal that bad management also produces disastrous effects upon
employee productivity. In particular, the study found that only 23% of
respondents believe that their work environment enables them to be productive
“all the time”, 46% claimed this happens “most of the time”, 22% “some of the
time” and 10% “rarely” or “never”; bad management (19%) was indeed cited as the
main reason for employees failing to reach maximum productivity (followed by inefficient
systems and processes – 18% and slow and inefficient technology – 15%).
Bad management can
indeed be regarded not only as a direct, but also as an indirect cause for
employees wanting to leave their organization. ADP’s study also suggested that
30% of employees feel so stressed in their workplace insofar as considering to
seek a new job. Despite stress levels at work may be influenced by many
variables, it cannot be denied that many of these variables, like workload, job
design, task delegation, etc., actually depend on managers.
Individuals having
problems with their managers will leave the organization by reason of their manager’s
incapability to manage and lead, but it can be hardly contended that under such
circumstances the employer could not be blamed.
HR can and should
play a significant role in helping employers identify suitable individuals for leadership
positions. As contended by Furnham (2018), in their talent acquisition process,
employers should take heed not only of the traits, skills, competencies and
behaviour regarded as necessary to fill a given role – selecting, but also of
the undesirable traits and features, that is, of those qualities which
candidates should not have or not have beyond a certain degree – screening or
selecting-out. During the talent acquisition process, HR should thus also investigate
and look for evidence of the traits and types of behaviour considered
unacceptable by the employer and regard these as select-out factors.
The insights offered
by Furnham (2018) into the talent acquisition process are indeed valuable and also
relevant to the process used to identify future leaders within an organization.
The prime objective is averting that talented individuals, who may have the
competencies and ability to lead others, will not at some point “derail.” There
are many components of a manager personality which may account for his/her
derailment, but some factors can prove to be more significant than others. The
most accurate predictors of an individual attitude to effectually fill a
management role and avert failure are the individual:
- Disposition to develop and maintain good, long-term relationships with different types of people;
- Self-awareness;
- Ability to adapt and learn (Furnham, 2018).
Identifying the right
individual for the right position and prepare this to effectually perform in
the new role, represents a daunting task for any employer. Making choices carefully
and plan in advance enable organizations to offer potential future leaders the
opportunity to gain the capability and experience necessary to attain the
desired standard before being appointed, enabling in turn the identified
individuals to feel confident and self-assured in their new role. The adoption
of this approach will benefit the organization in terms of employer brand,
employee engagement and motivation, and ultimately productivity.
The adage “employees
leave their managers and not their employers” might also prove to still hold
true, but this has to be regarded as the tip of the iceberg and not as the root
cause of the problem, whose responsibility to address invariably rests with
employers.
