This is the title of a provocative post over at Management Issues.
Rather than adding value to their organisations, two thirds of British managers actually create negative working climates that leave employees feeling resentful and frustrated.
Research by Hay Consultancy has shown that a fifth of UK workers are frustrated in their jobs, with rigid bureaucracy and poor management structures and systems hampering innovation and productivity.
Half of workers believed they did not have the authority to make decisions crucial to their jobs, with the same proportion complaining of being discouraged from participating in decisions that directly affected their work.
Managers were failing to design jobs in such a way as to capitalise on the talents of their workers, Hay also argued.
More than a third of the workers polled believed their job did not make best use of their skills and abilities.
The study of more than 3,100 leaders across 12 industries found that close to half of the managers were creating demotivating climates for employees, while a further 15 per cent generated only a neutral environment.
Good managers who really add value (in the eyes of their employers and their team members) are few and far between. Just a quarter of managers were able to create a high-performance climate, according to employees, and only an additional fifth managed to generate a ‘moderately energising’ working atmosphere.
But while the findings do not surprise me the headline (Get rid of managers and we’ll all be happier) does.
Getting rid of managers is not the answer. Managing their failure to perform is. In my experience if we manage managers well – tackle management under performance – and make sure that they manage effectively using feedback, coaching and delegation it is possible to quickly build a management culture that promotes high performance.
