It really is that person’s fault, they are not being fooled, they are being foolish, which is a whole different thing.
Let me back up and elaborate. We have often said and thought that our executives are fooled by non-performing staff whom are fantastic at showing off and marketing themselves. We can’t understand how such brilliant leaders are fooled by such blatant non-performers. And further, when we talk performance, we are speaking to measurable items like sales and collections. In other words, we look at what leadership tells us to do, measure it and realize that these chronic under-performers never measure up.
Leadership appears so sincere when discussing organizational goals that we fall for it every single time. I know I do. Then, after a meeting, I am inevitably caught wondering what is this leadership thinking? The answer is that, normally, people do not think beyond their own ego. It is not that difficult for a non-performer to stay employed (even in a highly compensated job) if they are skilled at soothing and building the egos of leadership. This skill is highly valuable to leadership. The executive leadership will make excuses for poor performance, even when that poor performance is so widely known as to be impossible to overlook: if that poor performance is performed by a highly skilled ego-booster for their own selves. Other executives will excuse leadership, because “the leaders just don’t see it, they don’t know what a poor performer s/he is”.
In fact, none of this is true. Overlooking and giving others excuses is just the one way trip to group delusions about the future. Eventually, if you place enough non-performers together, no matter how big the cash cow is, it will stop producing. The bad news is that the executives who created the negative situation will give themselves bonuses and raises and the front line staff who have suffered the low wages, will lose their jobs and their security. Eventually, that kind of poor management comes to a very bad end.
Of course ego builders are not the only ones who get a free ride. But, they sure are the most dangerous.
One Comment
Lynette
I once made the mistake of commenting to a boss who had come in bragging about making a ‘hole-in-one’, “Oh, yeah, right in the clown’s mouth, eh?”. Although it had nothing to do with my job, at which I was an excellent performer, but neither had his bragging about his golf game. But from then on, nothing I could do was right. And another employee, who never performed, was his constant companion, because she made him feel strong and big. Let’s just say, it didn’t end well. And these kind of people, as you have noticed, actually succeed…the one’s who get it are called “Leaders”. But if that’s what a leader is, then spare me the shame of being called one.
May I say that you are not, and have never been, since I have known you, that kind of leader. You invest the time to raise people up to be the very best of what they are, and that is why I have always admired you. You and I both swallowed the myth that it is all about performance. I don’t know if we have ever lived in a time when this is true, but certainly the time of giving everyone an award so that you don’t hurt their self-esteem, instead of making them work to be better and earn the award, is not that time.