Are you challenged with people that are not performing to your expectations? Do you feel that your employees are not doing all they could? Maybe it is caused by your mid-level managers.
Authors Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman said in their book, First Break All the Rules: What The Worlds’ Greatest Managers Do Differently, that people don’t leave jobs, they leave managers.
A survey of 2000 workers by management consultants Orion Partner found that almost half (47%) said “their managers made them feel threatened.”
It is no wonder why we have such a high percentage of Stage Two cultures. (Stage Two is a private conversation that “my life sucks”). My life would suck too if I felt threatened by my manager.
Why do managers behave this way? I believe that most don’t know better. A survey of 17,000 leaders found that “Average age for their first leadership training was 42, about 10 years after they began supervising people, and almost 20 years after they started experiencing leadership in organizations.” (Zenger/Folkman)
We are failing to train the very people that are responsible for our success.
What can you do?
- Offer leadership training. Organizations like Vistage offer training for Key Executives in addition to CEOs.
- Read books as a leadership team and review the principles. Some of my favorites are the following:
- Conscious Business: How to Build Value Through Values by Fred Kofman
- The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick Lencioni
- The Three Laws of Performance: Rewriting the Future of Your Organization and Your Life by Steve Zaffron
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Watch videos & TED talks and discuss as a group. These are some excellent ones:
