Why Can’t Managers Manage?

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Why can apos t managers manage This week I turn my attention to the quality of management in organisations or perhaps the lack of it Are good bosses as rare as hen s teeth Without fail poor management is one of the top if not the top reason we leave organisations Why can t managers manage Chris Roebuck is the honorary Visiting Professor of Transformational leadership at London s Cass Business School A former serving military officer Chris is also former global head of Leadership at HSBC Investment Bank and UBS Whilst at UBS the work that Chris and his team delivering success through people became a Harvard Business Review Case Study Speaking truth to power 5 33 A fundamental element of an open culture is the ability for employees to tell managers the truth Workers who are frightened of delivering bad news or news they don apos t think managers want to hear can lead to catastrophic events such as the Boeing 737 Max disaster and BP apos s Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010 Changing workplace culture 09 14 Chris argues that even if the c-suite are committed to changing an organisational culture the message often gets diluted as the message filters down Managers are often distracted by their own operational issues Many people argue this is because communications say in a global business are complex Chris disagrees and points to a 50 year old communications framework published by the Industrial Society since rebranded as The Work Foundation called apos Team Briefing apos that provides the fundamentals of good communication that he believes far too many organisations ignore Should HR be guardians of organisational culture 13 16 No is the simple answer The C-Suite are the guardians of the culture along with other leaders in the organisation HR are their to facilitate and support If leaders and managers abrogate their responsibility to HR the leader is just passing the buck The employee relationship rests with the line manager and it apos s the line manager who needs to do the talking Why don apos t business schools teach leadership skills 17 20 I ask why business schools seem to be so poor at teaching soft skills Chris responds saying this sort of training is seen as old fashioned and unimportant and business strategy is the sexy stuff Chris provides some startling statistics that underline that managers are ill-equipped to to deal with overwhelming majority having never received any management training in for example effective delegation What lessons can be learnt from military training 21 28 Chris is a veteran of the world-famous Royal Military Academy Sandhurst He comments that Sandhurst and other military academies around the world don apos t even talk about strategy until the officer cadets are skilled in the basics such as time management prioritisation communication giving feedback and delegating to others These he feels are valuable lessons managers in the civilian organisations should be taught Does effective management equal better team productivity 23 59 Chris suggests that it is basically impossible to draw a direct correlation between management performance and the performance of teams or individuals as its impossible to isolate this one variable However he quotes plenty of statistics that demonstrates that employees who are managed by an effective and inspirational manager will drive bottom line performance What apos s the one thing that defines a good boss 34 33 Chris reveals the single leadership quality that he says is mentioned time and again when hew asks audiences to describe the best manager they ever had Resourceshttps ovenreadyhr comhttps www linkedin com in podcasthost https chrisroebuck livehttps www lancaster ac uk work-foundation