Know Any Chickens?

We all know managers who just don’t have the intestinal fortitude to bring performance issues to the attention of their employees when needed. These “chickens” aren’t doing themselves, their employees, or the organization any favors. Far from it, in fact. The damage done by these managers is almost unforgivable. Believe it or not, most employees actually want to know when their performance isn’t living up to expectations. To ignore or soft-sell performance issues creates a culture lacking appropriate accountability. And there is an ongoing deterioration of productivity and effectiveness that impacts overall success.

We all know these kinds of managers. Some classify them as being afraid of confrontation, but the reality is that most performance discussions are not confrontational at all. What they really boil down to are opportunities….coaching opportunities. So we’ll just say they’re “coaching averse”

There are some real tell-tale signs involved when a manager is coaching averse. Here are just a few:

  • Communication is more often than not in written form as opposed to verbal. Whether it is by email or memo or whatever, the manager prefers to communicate in writing without discussion. This is true particularly when the topic is touchy.
  • Marginal employees or employees with bad attitudes are allowed to continue unabated in their employment. In other words, the chicken won’t fire bad employees.
  • Performance reviews for all employees are at least acceptable by most standards. Because a performance review is intended to reinforce, document, and formalize performance, the chickens just can’t bring themselves to mark down performance because they know they’ll have to deliver the news personally.
  • Employees get away with murder…well not literally, but figuratively speaking they sure do. Negative behavior and subpar productivity is tolerated. The impact of this behavior on other employees is disastrous over time.

The adage about employees leaving managers and not companies sure seems to play itself out a lot. Managers obviously have a direct positive, negative or neutral impact on employees. The “chickens” we address in this article have such a detrimental effect on employees that they usually lose many of their best employees leaving the bad ones in place. When left unchecked, this pattern really turns things upside down for the work unit involved.

Organizations have to be on the lookout for the chicken and then hold them accountable for changing their approach and behavior. In most cases, it’s a lost cause, but there are some success stories. Let’s just hope the chicken’s boss is not another chicken.