I recently caught up with a friend of mine who has played leadership roles in large enterprises as well as small to medium-sized startups. We got on the topic of leaders who don’t think much of their direct reports and teams, and his thoughtful response was
‘Everybody is a low performer in the wrong environment.’
Unfortunately, this ‘Environment’ is often caused by an imbalance where the pressure of delivering and meeting expectations outweighs the pressure of taking the time to understand and provide what your people and team need in order to be successful. (This doesn’t always take a lot of time by the way)
Now, I’m not talking about having an unlimited vacation policy, free meals, and pet insurance. I’m talking about the alignment of THE RIGHT expectations to skills, incentive structure, support, coaching, and training. I’m also talking about NOT OVERCOMMITTING your people, and providing them the resources and the right motivation they need to be successful.
I’ve been lucky with the teams that I managed as I’ve always found that if you work hard for your team and focus on what they need to be successful, they will always perform at their best for you. I personally have an overcommit problem, but I’m always right there with them in the trenches when that happens, not standing overhead cracking the whip.
But I have also had low performers on my teams over the last decade whom I spent months trying to help, coach, and handhold. And I was heartbroken each time I had to eventually manage them out because I was unable to give them the environment they needed to be successful.
Key for me being personally to being successful is working with leaders and partners who focused on removing my barriers and obstacles. My best managers have taken a step back and asked me what my constraints were, where I needed help, and how long I thought I could maintain my team velocity. And they were always in my corner, so that I never had to worry about my place in the company, my importance to the team, and what I needed to do in order to meet my career aspirations and work objectives. I could just focus on my work since they were focused on me, their people.
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