Don't Be A Weak Manager

We have all worked with weak or new managers. They all display similar traits and characteristics. In today’s highly competitive market, managers need to spend more time fine tuning their soft skills of leadership than the functional skills that garnered them the managerial position they now hold. Here are my eight ways to spot a weak manager:

1. Delegation: New or weak managers do not delegate, they have not learned to trust others or to train others to be self sufficient in order create a scalable team for the future. As a manager, it doesn’t matter that if you can do the task faster or better, it matters how well your team performs the task. The weak manager needs to learn that they will be judged by how well their team performs not necessarily by how much they produce. I can always tell new or weak managers by their delegation skills. Weak managers do not delegate anything, great managers delegate everything. Of course, there is a complete spectrum in between these extremes.

2. Remote Workers: The weak manager feels the need for all their direct reports to be physically located in their same office. They feel that remote workers are goofing off and cannot be trusted without “adult supervision”. This weak manager has an issue with control. The need to keep the team within arms reach is not a question of productivity; it is a question of personality. If you hire the right people and have the processes and support in place to enable their success, a remote worker can be more productive than an officed employee as demonstrated by companies such as Best Buy who have adopted telecommuting and remote offices in almost every department within their corporation.

3. Weak Performers: This weak manager will not address or confront their weak performers. They usually keep them around too long, they convince themselves that with a little work, the weak perfomer can be changed. New managers spend too much time trying to “fix” the problem employees and lose the big picture perspective for the organization and its overall performance. Take the example of how GE uses the practice of top grading, removing the bottom 10% performers each year to manage productivity. GE understands the larger challenge for an organizations’ success and does not allow itself or its managers to become fixated in the details of weak performer.

4. Asking For Help: The new manager will not ask for help because they view asking for help as a sign of weakness or failure. As a manager becomes stronger and more experienced, they realize that everyone needs coaching, help or mentorship to perform in today’s tough business climate. All highly successful, high performing athletes have coaches, usually several to train them in different areas. So to, a manager needs guidance and assessment to improve their game.

5. Office Door Closed: This weak manager will keep their office door closed most of the time. The barrier they unknowingly create for themselves; trying to reduce the interaction with their team, works! It reductions interaction and increases alienation. The rule of thumb here is that your office door should only be closed for confidential discussions on compensation, HR, or employee reviews. When building the new corporate headquarters for a company I ran; we debated whether to eliminate the office doors all together. We decided to have windows in all office doors instead so that although the manager had some privacy when necessary, they still appeared accessible.

6. Insecure: One of the under-lying reasons these weak manager behaviors exist is the human trait we all share. We all carry a sense of insecurity about something. New managers probably face the greatest sense of insecurity and do their best to hide how unsure they are in their capabilities. Sometimes this insecurity is for personal reasons, sometimes it is professional. Whatever the reason, there is a great old line that we should all keep in mind, “never let them see you sweat”. So if you are insecure, don’t show it.

7. Decision Making: This weak manager will be hesitant to make a decision, any decision and convinces themselves that research and analysis is the same as making the decision. Or they make the opposite mistake and make a decision too quickly without enough data or based upon their own personal reaction to a situation. Both avenues signal a problem. A strong manager looks for just the right amount of information, makes the decision, and if wrong, is strong enough to admit the mistake and change the decision or direction.

8. Over-Commits to Upper Management: Lastly, the weak manager has a tendency to over-commit to upper management or the board of directors because they are not strong enough to say no or to negotiate a more reasonable goal or objective. This over-commitment starts the circle of motion known as a “fire-drill” and only further alienates the staff. When a weak manager over commits the team, they will feel like their leader is not looking out for their interests or worse, setting them up for failure.

These are my top eight signs of weak managers. I would love to hear your thoughts or share other signs or traits you have witnessed or experienced.