Latest / Leadership Sandbox: Strategies to Uplevel Workplace Communication, Team Collaboration, and Your Corporate Culture / Stop Managing the Manager Who Won't Manage Their People | Episode 150

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Stop Managing the Manager Who Won't Manage Their People | Episode 150 · Leadership Sandbox: Strategies to Uplevel Workplace Communication, Team Collaboration, and Your Corporate Culture

• 0:28
  Hey, welcome into the leadership sandbox. Today I want to talk about the word
• 0:33
  accountability, but not the employee who keeps missing deadlines or underperforming
• 0:39
  or producing outcomes that simply aren't good enough. I want to talk about their
• 0:44
  manager. Because what happens when a manager knows someone on their team isn't
• 0:50
  delivering, but they won't address it? They make excuses, they give another chance.
• 0:56
  And yet another chance. They lower the bar and they'll explain all the reasons why
• 1:01
  that employee may be struggling. Or they bring in the problem to you and somehow
• 1:06
  expect you to fix it. You know, hire another person because Bob's not working. And
• 1:11
  now you're managing the manager and their employee. That's not an employee
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  accountability problem anymore, friend. That's a leadership problem.
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  And today we're going to talk about three things that I want you thinking about
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  when you have or if you have a manager who won't hold their own people accountable
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  for the outcomes they're producing. So welcome to the Leadership Sandbox. I'm Tammy
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  J. Bond, and we're diving into this great topic around stop managing the manager
• 1:47
  who won't manage their people. In three, two, one, let's get into the sandbox.
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  All right, friends, this is what I want. I want to start here with my first of
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  three points. You cannot hold an employee more accountable or responsible than
• 2:05
  their manager is willing to. And I want that to sink in for you because I see it
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  far too often where we have people, managers, running to their manager, supervisor,
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  and saying, Bob's a problem. I'm having such a challenge with.
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  He won't or he never's or they always or they fill in the blank and they get
• 2:26
  frustrated and Bob's just not working. So we need to hire somebody new. Is that
• 2:30
  really where we're going? Because there ought to be a whole process, you know,
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  about what we're going to do for and with Bob before we get to we're just replacing
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  Bob. See, this is where I want you to stop solving for the wrong problem. Cause
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  when the manager isn't willing to hold their own people responsible and accountable
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  for what they've been given to do.
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  That's not a you problem unless you're not making the responsible party, the
• 2:57
  manager, do their part of the job. You see, if an employee repeatedly misses the
• 3:02
  standard that's been set, if their manager repeatedly allows it, who actually owns
• 3:07
  the problem? And why you to spend some time digging in with the manager who doesn't
• 3:12
  like to hold their people accountable and ask this: what expectation have you
• 3:17
  clearly communicated? What have you already addressed this problem and what
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  What's the clarity that you've given them? What changed for you or for them after
• 3:27
  you addressed it? And what happens if it doesn't change? And here's a big one. And
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  by when do we want to see this change? You see, if you're getting vague answers
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  like, but you know, he's really going through some things personally, or he's
• 3:42
  really got some challenges that, you know, I I guess I wasn't really paying
• 3:47
  attention to. That's vagary and excuse blame shifting.
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  You may in that moment not actually have an employee performance a problem. You
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  actually have a manager performance problem. And the manager performance problem is
• 4:02
  what you want to address first before any other employee issue. If you have a
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  manager that doesn't want to work to hold responsible the parties that they
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  supervise that are within their sphere of control and they want to put it off on
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  everybody else.
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  Then you have a manager problem and you have the wrong person in place. Now, maybe
• 4:24
  it's just because you promoted that person because they built the thing really
• 4:28
  well, right? We get we often promote the human doing and we forget to build up the
• 4:33
  human being. You've heard me talk about that. Or we we actually go to correct the
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  human doing and not necessarily seeing the human being. But the flip side of that
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  can also be true. Meaning we can look too much and have too much empathy. Honestly,
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  I've seen this.
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  Got two people dealing with it right now. We care so much for the people, the human
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  being, that we're actually not holding responsible the human doing aspect of the
• 5:00
  work. And we're making excuses for it or putting it off on the company to just
• 5:04
  replace that person. And then I don't have to deal with it. No, that's now a
• 5:09
  manager problem. That's a different kind of performance problem. And as the leader,
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  that manager issue needs to be addressed before anything else.
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  Point number two that I want to say real quick and in a hurry today is that empathy
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  without standards, friends, simply becomes permission. What does that mean, Tam? I
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  hear this all the time, but they're going through a lot. I don't want them to feel
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  like I'm coming down too hard. We put people first here, or I've already talked to
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  them. Well, that's great. I'm glad you've already talked to them. What'd you get?
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  What was the outcome?
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  You can care deeply about somebody and still hold the standard and expectation for
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  what that performance standard looks like. Here's how that conversation goes. I
• 5:53
  understand what happened, you've explained it. And here's what still needs to
• 5:58
  happen. And that's you to the manager that's not performing. And then you're going
• 6:03
  to ask them, what are you going to do differently? And what outcome are you
• 6:08
  committing to?
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  And then of course, by when. Because every time a manager allows the standard that
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  you've set to move and to shift, the team is learning what the real standard and
• 6:24
  behavior pattern is that's allowable. And no one is hanging that as a value on the
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  wall. It's what you're willing to tolerate, and their behavior is modeling what
• 6:36
  you're willing to tolerate. So if you have, again,
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  A manager who's frustrated and struggling with one of their team members and their
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  repeated behaviors, I'd be looking at that manager first and tackling that manager
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  first and getting after them of what they've done to fix the problem that they
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  maybe actually created. And then there's number three. Accountability is part of
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  the manager's deliverable. Let me say that again. Accountability is part of the
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  manager's deliverable.
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  That you supervise, that you supervise, it's part of their deliverable. And this is
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  where I have seen senior leaders get themselves into trouble because they take on
• 7:21
  too much responsibility for the manager that's not performing. You they'll see the
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  problem, they can name it, they know how it needs to be handled, and then they
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  swoop in and they handle it. I want you to stop, immediately stop that because
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  Every time you manage their employee for them, you may be teaching your manager
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  that difficult leadership gets escalated upward. And I'm out. I have no
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  responsibility in it. Instead, I want you to put the ownership back where it
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  belongs. And this is your team, don't forget. So putting it back to where it
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  belongs is back to the managers that are responsible for managing their people and
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  identifying what.
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  outcomes we're creating by the behaviors that we might not be properly leading in
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  the workplace. What standard needs to be reinforced? That's a question I'd be
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  asking myself. And what will you do different if it doesn't change is a question
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  for you to ask that manager that maybe doesn't want to hold others responsible and
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  accountable. And of course, always that by when and follow-up, right?
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  Having the follow-up, if you I've said this in other episodes about my 20 minute
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  check-ins. The 20 minute check-in is super important weekly when you're course
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  correcting behaviors. And if you've got a manager that's not managing their people
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  and they're coming to you with all the problems and they're just waiting for you to
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  magically make it go away, the question from you get to change. What have you
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  tried? What have you done? Tell me when you what the last conversation was that you
• 9:00
  had with.
• 9:04
  With Bob about this problem that you keep seeing consistently. And what was the
• 9:09
  buy-when that you gave him with the clarity of expectation? That conversation you
• 9:14
  can have with the manager and put it back on them to answer it. Don't tell them
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  how, don't tell them what. Make them answer those questions for you. Don't rescue
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  them. And don't take it back like, I'll just go have a conversation with Bob. I had
• 9:29
  this happen to somebody that a leader that I was working with that was.
• 9:34
  Working to get a person and I've I've talked about it in the sandbox before. He was
• 9:39
  working to get one person moved off of his team after it was a two year issue, two
• 9:44
  years. And his director wouldn't allow it, wouldn't allow it. you just need to give
• 9:49
  him more time. you just need to give him more tries. he really isn't that bad, is
• 9:54
  he? But so the the manager could never move the person off the team and actually
• 9:59
  manage the behaviors that were getting in the way of the work getting done.
• 10:05
  Because the director kept rescuing the employee because, well, we just don't treat
• 10:09
  people like that. But the employee was creating a lot of workarounds for a lot of
• 10:13
  other people. But when you have people in leadership positions that never learn,
• 10:18
  I'm going to say it this way: when you put people into leadership positions that
• 10:22
  never learn how to do the leadership leading and the behavior system that goes with
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  that.
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  You create these problems that people bring with them of these historical issues
• 10:35
  that they have from storylines, from how they came up in said organization or, you
• 10:40
  know, that well, how they were treated by a previous manager, whatever. It's old
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  storylines. Stop that. Don't rescue and don't take back the standard that you've
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  set because you feel like you've got to take care of your manager. No, coach the
• 10:55
  manager to actually manage. That's your job.
• 11:00
  That's your opportunity. And the bigger question here is this. And I want to leave
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  this with you today. When a manager repeatedly refuses to hold their people
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  accountable, at what point does their avoidance become the performance issue?
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  Because eventually it will. It does. We spend a lot of time talking about
• 11:20
  underperforming employees in the sandbox. And maybe we need to spend more time
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  talking about managers who tolerate underperformance.
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  That's where we go in and dial in on the behaviors. That's exactly why
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  accountability cannot just be a conversation. It has to become part of your
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  leadership operating system. And with our command behavior operating system,
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  anchoring the standard is right there in the middle of it. You've got to set it and
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  anchor the standard. Make expectations unmistakably clear.
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  Normalize accountability. Following up isn't confrontation, it's leadership. And
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  then you deploy and you defend. You deploy what you want and you defend it until
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  they get it, because setting the standard that you aren't willing to defend is
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  actually not a standard at all. So this week, I want you to take a look, friend, at
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  your organization, at your leadership, at your team. Where are you frustrated with
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  an employee?
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  And when the conversation that you actually need to have is with their manager,
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  then have that. And if it's the manager issue, solve for that first before the
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  employee and ask yourself, what am I tolerating right now?
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  what am I tolerating that I'm also complaining about? That's probably where your
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  next leadership conversation needs to happen. Lead yourself well, friends, because
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  leadership isn't something you're born with. It's something that you grow into. And
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  healthy leaders know how to lead themselves well and hold other leaders and
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  managers accountable in the workplace. And they don't feel bad about it.
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  Lead yourself well, friends. People are waiting for you. I'll see you next week in
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  the Leadership Sandbox. Make it a great day. God bless you.