Q&A23..Shoring up the weak manager

Q: you talked in a previous article about negative managers. I wonder what advice should be given to weak managers (not necessarily negative in their feedback).

In my book, a weak manager is always opting to compromise when he needs to confront. He/she does not have the guts to support his/her team but focuses on maintaining his/her status in the organization. He/she can do well at recognizing his people's work by showing appreciation.

Regards,

R.A.

Dear R.,

A weak boss can be worse than a negative boss, I agree with you completely. Unlike the negative boss, a weak (or soft) boss is too passive to spark a reaction from employees, like driving them to leave the company. Sometimes, weak managers hide behind their social abilities where they try to become likeable to the employees, but not effective in supporting them and providing them the resources to excel.

There are reasons behind the “weak” manager’s behavior. one of them is that they put their status in the organization ahead of the work at hand. To them, decisions are about building their position in the organization, not about doing the right thing. While short term, this might seem like it can work, long term it cannot. Putting one’s status above professionalism will lead to the manager losing respect of those around him, even if he wins their approval for his actions.

Another reason for “soft” behavior by managers is their quest for popularity. So, when the manager needs to confront a problem head on, he opts to tip toe around it in a political manner to prevent getting someone angry. This leads to building up of problems to uncontrollable levels and causes even more serious consequences in the future.

To soft managers, it is important not to make a mistake. This is another reason for their passive behavior. They would rather delay a decision until they are perfectly sure that they are not making a mistake. To them, a mistake would make them look weak in front of others and undermine their status and also their popularity. So, they tend to leave problems until they either take care of themselves or until they are one hundred percent sure that there is actually a problem. Again, the environment around this kind of manager starts bearing the fruits of his behavior affecting morale of employees and their ability to perform.

Finally, some managers prefer not to go to battle with others over issues, and prefer to have a harmonious relationship with everybody. Harmony should never be a goal in itself, as it can be detrimental to work. Unlike common belief, too much harmony leads to people avoiding conflict with others and letting go of serious problems that are hindering work. This leads to problems building up and finally blowing up in the face of the manager and the people around him.

These are the symptoms of a soft manager and to remedy them, a manager needs to first of all recognize that he has such a problem. To help in that regard, I have made this quick questionnaire that should help one determine if he is a “soft” manager or not:

	Question	Scoring Rules	Score
1	Are you popular among employees?	Score one point for answering “YES” to BOTH questions, otherwise, zero.
2	Are there direct actions you take specifically to build popularity?
3	Is it hard for you to fire an employee?	Same as above
4	Are some of your employees your friends outside work?	Same as above
5	Does management feel you spoil your employees?	Same as above
6	Is your team performance unsatisfactory compared to other teams in the organization?	Same as above
7	If an employee deserves a reprimand, do you wait a couple of days before reprimanding? (versus immediately)	Same as above
8	Do employees usually argue with you on whether they deserve the reprimand or not?	Same as above
9	Have you set written, clear, measurable performance standards for employees, and communicated them to employees?	Score one point for answering “NO” to BOTH questions, otherwise, zero.
10	Think of an employee you fired, have you explicitly told him that if he does not improve he will be fired?
		Total Score Here:

The score above measures how soft a manager is? The higher the score, the softer is the manager. A score of 3 and above requires serious reconsideration of attitudes and behaviors towards employees. A score of 1 or 2 is not alarming even though it reflects need for improvement. A score of zero shows that you are not a soft manager.

To fix the problem, a manager should reverse his attitudes and behaviors that render him soft. These include seeking status, popularity, harmony, and perfection. Instead a manger should be ready to do the right thing, regardless of whether that makes her unpopular or affect her status in the organization. She should tackle issues in a proactive fashion, dealing with them before they even occur where possible, by influencing the factors that are causes for problems. a manager should make decisions swiftly, knowing that it is inevitable that he will make a mistake once in a while, but that is better than being indecisive.

The opposite of soft is tough. It is good for leaders to be tough. As we sometimes misunderstand what soft means, we usually misinterpret the meaning of tough in managerial terms. Some people think that tough means angry, frowning, scary, monster-like, and disrespectful, screaming a lot, merciless, rude …etc. Ironically, these are masks that soft managers hide behind to cover their insecurities from being soft managers. There is nothing tough about screaming a lot; even a baby can do it. So, what is meant by tough?

A “Tough” manager, or a tough-minded manager, is a manager who is ready to take on tough decisions. A tough manager is one who is ready to hold people accountable for there actions. A tough manager does not focus on being popular, but instead focuses on the responsibilities of the position and reaching organizational goals. A tough manager holds people accountable without worry about his or her popularity. Tough managers put emotions in check as they make their tough decisions at work.

A good reference on this subject is a book by Patrick Lencione, called “The Five Temptations of a Manager,” if interested in more information on the subject.