18%!!

How many truly great managers have you had in your career?

Think about it for a minute. It’s not too hard. Think about all of your jobs and your direct managers. How many of them were truly great? Or even just good?

What do I mean by great or good?

I mean managers who motivated you. Who inspired you. Who set high expectations and challenged you to meet them but did so by creating trust and finding ways to inspire and motivate and lead versus push and manage with fear. Managers who were authentic and built a real connection with you versus managed operations and checked off to-do lists. Managers who truly cared about you and invested their time in your professional growth and development.

That’s what I mean, when I say “great manager”.

So how many? What’s the percentage?

My bet — about 20%. Maybe less, maybe more. I’ve interviewed hundreds of managerial candidates for various positions over the years. I always dive into their views on management and leadership and the conversation always starts w/ that one question. How many great managers have you had? The answer is always about the same 2 or 3 out of 10.

Interestingly enough, The Gallup organization did a long ranging survey over the course of 2 decades. Interviewed 27M+ people about subjects related to leadership. They asked that same basic question as well. The answer was 18%!

Translation — less than 2 out of 10 managers are truly great or even good at what they do. That results in the vast majority of employees being disengaged in their work, apathetic and unmotivated. The bottom line impact on the U.S. economy alone is estimated to $300B to $400B each and every year!

How does this happen? How do we end up with soooooo many bad managers? The answer is simple → basketball.

HUH?!?

Here’s the analogy. If we took 5 people who have never played basketball but are agile, can run fast, and have good hand-eye coordination, and we gave them a basketball and asked them to start playing, they’d probably be pretty bad at the game. But if we gave them some instruction, some direction, some coaching and some mentoring, over time, they’d likely improve ……. greatly.

We have the same problem with leaders and managers. We typically promote high performing individual contributors to management positions and provide them with little to no training, mentoring or coaching. And, to make matters worse, any direction or guidance they get from other managers and leaders around them is likely to come from the 82% who are basically mediocre or maybe even terrible at leading.

The solution to this problem isn’t complex, but it does take a will to change and a commitment to to train and improve. There are elements of management and leadership that are innate and natural to some people. But for most, even those with natural abilities, the right training, coaching, and mentoring can help them understand how to manage and lead effectively.

As we’ve developed Lucid and our associated training programs, I’ve explained this concept to a number of people. One of the questions or counter points that comes up is something like this, “I’ve been through some leadership training. It was interesting. But I don’t think it made a difference in our organization.” Or, I’ll get a question like this, “Will this work? Will this improve the overall quality of leadership in our company?”

The answer is…. It depends.

Yes, I do believe that the right training will make a difference and that people can be taught how to lead effectively. But there are a few gotchas.

1. Going through one group training course will help, but it isn’t enough. Managers need to practice what they learn and gain experience leading the right way over time in order to really improve their skills.
2. Furthermore, they need to be held accountable to leading and managing in the right ways. Their evaluations need to be based not only on business results but on team results.
3. Lastly, and MOST IMPORTANTLY!!! The way to make any change happen within an organization is to start at the TOP. We can train the managers and directors and even the VPs all day long. But if the executive team and the CEO are not onboard, then real cultural change will never happen. The executive team needs to set the pace and lead by example. If they do, it is entirely possible to realize company-wide improvement in the quality of leadership.

DG