A Bad Manager Is an Order of Magnitude More Damaging Than a Bad Worker
A manager is bad if he/she fails to discipline or fire employees who do a poor job.
By David Grace (www.DavidGraceAuthor.com)
Companies spend large amounts of time and money in the hiring process, but they rarely get a perfect employee. And, even if they do, there is no guarantee that their new employee is going to stay perfect.
That’s were managers come in.
A Good Manager Understands That He/She Is Not His Subordinates’ Friend
Some managers think they are, or should be, their employees’ friend. Those managers are wrong.
Because managers have to
- Order their subordinates to perform tasks they may not want to do
- Correct their subordinates errors
- Discipline their subordinates for mistakes or poor behavior
- Fire their subordinates when they can’t or won’t do the job
a good manager can be friendly to their subordinates but can never be their friend.
A Bad Manager Is Toxic To A Company
One of the worst things a company can do is employ a bad manager. A bad manager is an order of magnitude more damaging to a company than a bad worker.
What Is A Bad Manager?
A bad manager is someone who fails to discipline or fire employees who do a poor job because a bad employee is toxic to a company.
An employee who is allowed to do a bad job is like a flu carrier who will spread disease among all the company’s workers.
If a manager allows a worker who does a bad job to remain on the job without discipline or correction, the other workers will receive the clear and damaging message:
- “The company doesn’t care if we do a bad job, so why should I make an effort to do a good job?”
If a manager allows a worker to come in late, spend time sending texts on his/her cell phone, spend material time chatting with other workers, in other words goofing off, then the other employees will receive the clear and damaging message:
- “The company doesn’t care if we flake off and don’t pay attention to business, so why should I work hard?”
We could go down the entire list of bad employee conduct, but the lesson is the same for each: If the manager allows an employee to act improperly it sends a clear and corrupting message to every other employee:
- “The Company doesn’t care if we do X, so I may as well do X as well.”
What A Good Manager Knows
In order to avoid sending these sorts of toxic messages, managers need to know
- who is doing their work correctly
- whose work is full of mistakes,
- who is promptly responding to company/customer calls and emails and who is not
- who is following up on requests for changes, updates and corrections and who is not
- who is paying attention to business and who is spending excessive time on breaks and personal business
- who is showing up on time and who is not
- who is acting inappropriately, using harassing or insulting language, or acting in a hostile or bullying manner
Managers need to learn which employees
- Have the skills to move up to a more responsible position
- Have skills that are more suitable for a different position
- Don’t have the skills/personality to properly perform their job
- Don’t have the willingness to properly perform their job
In every business forms, reports, spreadsheets, etc. have to be completed in a certain way with certain types of information and saved in certain locations. Files need to be updated. Data errors need to be corrected.
A good manager reviews his subordinates’ work and knows which employees are doing their job property and which ones are not.
What A Manager Does When He/She Learns A Subordinate Is Doing A Poor Job
When an employee is turning out work that routinely contains mistakes or omissions the manager needs to determine if the problem is
- The employee wasn’t properly trained
- The employee doesn’t care about doing a good job
- The employee is unable to do a good job
If the source of the poor performance is poor training, the manager should be able to fix that with supplemental training.
If the root of the problem is that employee doesn’t care about doing a good job then disciplining the employee will quickly reveal if he/she can be motivated to do the job properly or not.
If the employee doesn’t have the needed skills or personality to do a good job, or is unwilling to do a good job then he/she needs to be fired immediately or else their poor performance will send the message to the other employees that no one cares if you do a bad job.
Summary
Managers need to
- Encourage/reward employees who do an excellent job
- Re-train employees who do a poor job because they don’t understand what’s required of them
- Discipline employees who do a poor job because they don’t care about doing a good job
- Fire employees who can’t or won’t do a good job.
A manager needs to immediately fire employees who
- Can’t do the job properly
- Won’t do the job properly, or
- Are abusive or disruptive to other employees
One of the best things a company can do to provide better products and better services is have managers who pay sufficient attention to their subordinates’ performance to be aware of who’s doing a good job and reward them and to be aware of who’s doing a poor job and re-train, discipline or fire them.
— David Grace (www.DavidGraceAuthor.com)
