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Passive Team Management – Why Your Team Is Struggling to Reach Targets · Enhance.training

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Passive team management is as damaging to team performance as micromanagement and being overly prescriptive to team members.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Passive management often shows up in a lack of direction, a lack of engagement, hesitation, delayed decision making, and more.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: While passive team management may feel like a hands-off approach that empowers teams, it often leaves teams confused, unsupported, and disengaged.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: I've been lucky to work in many top companies alongside many talented managers and leaders.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: In my experience, far too many managers are too passive in their management approach.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: It can be really easy to focus on your own work and not spend enough time managing the team.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Passive team managers do just this.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: It is even harder to manage actively and successfully when you have not been taught the best approaches to take in many different situations that managers encounter.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: A study published in the British Journal of Management estimates that at least 20% of employees experience passive leadership in the workplace.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: In my experience, more than half of managers are passive team managers, or at least more passive than they should be.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: A passive management style is detrimental to team performance.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: I have personally worked for several managers that just left me to get on with my work.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: I had next to no input, minimal direction, and no development from them.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: I had a manager in name only, and this did not help me do a better job at all.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: I've worked alongside plenty of board directors that have passive leadership approaches to their team management, and they struggled to increase team performance in any meaningful way.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: I.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: 13 promotions up to board level and multiple best team prizes suggests that I got a lot right in managing teams.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: The most important outcome of having a leader of a team is better team performance.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: If a group of individuals can produce the same or better results without a manager, there is no point in having that manager.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: Active team management done in the right way significantly increases team performance.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: Here are 10 signs of being too passive or of passive team management.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: A great way to check is to run an anonymous survey of your team asking them to rate on a scale some or all of these factors.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: Passive team managers, firstly, are generally slow decision makers or even avoid making difficult decisions.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: Secondly, the team asks the manager to make a lot of decisions they should be making themselves.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: Third, team members don't have clear priorities or goals on a weekly, monthly or quarterly basis.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: Fourth, little or no action is taken to address underperformance, which typically gets worse over time, causing even more problems.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: Fifth, deadlines are regularly missed with no consequences for the individuals.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Sixth, high performers feel unsupported and are just left to get on with their work, which does little to encourage, engage and keep them.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: Seventh, dominant personalities hold a lot of sway in the team as passive managers do little to balance out the different personalities they have.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: Eighth, conflicts within the team and between teams go unresolved, slowing down work and damaging relationships.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: 9th, team managers feel uncertain, you know of direction, of authority, of responsibilities, which again slows down work.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: And tenth, passive team managers are much more reactive than proactive, often putting out one fire after another.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: If a few of these feel a bit too close to home, then adopting a more active management style would help you be more effective as a manager and help increase overall team performance.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Jess Coles.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: If you're new to this podcast, enhance.training provides resources, courses, and coaching for you to build management expertise and confidence to lead any team to their best performance.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: For coaching options to improve how well you manage teams and businesses and to improve the results your team generates, visit us at enhance.training and select coaching, or send me an email at support at enhance.training.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: Here are eight big dangers of passive team management.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: Passive managers often lead teams that struggle to meaningfully increase team performance.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas teams led by active managers find realistic targets much easier to beat.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: With passive team management, working in the team can feel very unfocused, directionless and reactive.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: Passive team management causes a ton of little issues that add up over time to create significant damage to team performance.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: Here are eight of the big ones.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: Firstly, a passive management style lowers coordination and teamwork across the team.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: Secondly, lack of clear prioritization means too much low value work is undertaken.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: Third, with passive leadership, getting decisions takes longer.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: Team members often avoid taking decisions themselves because of a lack of clarity and responsibilities.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: Fourth, team standards drop lower over time with passive managers because they don't put in the work and effort needed to maintain standards.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: Fifth, there is a lot of ambiguity in the team and in the communication between team members.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: Sixth, everyone works at a slower pace, decisions are slower, help is given more reluctantly or slowly, resources are less available, etc.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: The team just produces less.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: Seventh, passive team managers generally have lower levels of trust within the team.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Teamwork suffers, coordination suffers, support and help suffers.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: Eighth, unhealthy team dynamics often emerge with those shouting the loudest winning at the expense of others and the overall team.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: Teams with passive managers are often quiet places, with everyone doing their own thing rather than working together with collaboration, communication, and joint problem solving going on.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: The more reactive the team, the more the team struggles to reach sensible targets, the more likely the manager is too passive in their approach.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: Take these five actions for better, more active management for any team.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: Being a successful active manager takes skill, courage, and confidence.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: It is not an easy journey to become a very successful manager.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: With so few managers being taught how to effectively manage teams, getting the level of active team management right to drive team performance is even harder.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm taking you through the most important actions that you should take to develop a more active team management style without straying into micromanaging territory.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: I've used these actions to transform the worst team in a business into one of the best within 6 to 12 months.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: Each are very effective and when implemented well will make a significant difference to the performance of any team.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: Firstly, choose a very clear direction for your team.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: Active managers always communicate clear direction a lot.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: It is always a good idea to work with your boss to agree a clear direction for the team.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: Before speaking to your boss, always form your own views of direction based on where your team is and what the company's strategy and situation is right now.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: When you have a clear team direction for at least the next six months, then break this down into clear goals for the subteams and individuals on at least a monthly and quarterly basis.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: Keep communicating progress against those goals, a clear indicator of active team management.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: Secondly, with clearer direction and clear goals for individuals, you have the foundations to provide a lot more feedback to your team members.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: You can talk about progress, about performance, about how they're working, what seems to be effective and what is not.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: Active team managers create visibility of progress against goals and spend time talking to their teams about progress.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: The more feedback team members get, the more clarity they will have on what they should be doing to contribute to beating their team goals.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: Thirdly, find and solve team problems as quickly as practical.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: Don't solve problems your team members should be solving themselves.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: Solve problems your team members can't solve.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: Ones that involve other teams that are more complex, which require authority and persuasion skills, etc.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: Find problems team members struggle to solve and work to solve them.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: Active team managers spend a lot of their time solving problems that enable their teams to work more effectively and efficiently.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: Fourth, step into conflict.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: Don't allow miscommunication, personal rivalries, a lack of clarity on roles and responsibilities, poor behaviour, poor performance, etc.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: to continue without you taking visible action to resolve these problems.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: Visible action sends a clear message.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: Destructive conflict is not acceptable.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: Show you have an involved team management style by resolving conflicts quickly.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: Fifth, explain your decisions to the team.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: This makes them transparent and your team understand why you have made the decisions you have.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: This gives them confidence and makes you more accountable.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: Plus, you are also helping them develop their decision-making skills.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: Be confident in the decisions you make and admit to the team when you've made a bad call.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: The worst decision is no decision.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: Please note that none of these actions create micromanagement.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: All these actions are focused on the environment in which the team works, on what they work on and helps to improve communication.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: One small example: you are not telling your team how to reach goals, only setting out which goals they need to reach.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: These five actions to adopt a more active management style are a great starting point.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: When you are doing each of these actions well, you will see your team members working more closely together and your team will be finding it a lot easier to reach team targets.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: Then you can focus on the next set of actions to develop and increase the success of your team.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: So, in summary, managing teams well is not easy.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: If it were, everyone would be a manager.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: A passive team management style hinders your ability to increase team performance.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: Being a successful manager is finding the right balance between many conflicting priorities, pressures and needs to give your team the best chance of doing a great job.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: There is not a one size fits all.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: What is right with one team and in a specific company situation will not work nearly as well with a different team and a different company situation.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: Flexibility and adaptability are both very important skills to develop to be successful as an active team manager and leader.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: As a reminder, the best actions to adopt a more active team management style are firstly, choose a very clear team direction and communicate this direction every chance you get.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: Secondly, provide a lot of feedback to your team.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: The more visibility you create, the more you have to feedback on.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: Third, find and solve problems your team members can't, which positively help your team outperform.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: Fourth, step into conflict to reduce the level of destructive conflict in your team.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: And fifth, explain your decisions to the team.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: Be transparent and accountable to them.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: For coaching options to improve how well you manage teams and businesses and to improve the results your team generates, please visit us at enhance.training and select coaching.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: Or send me an email at support at enhance.training and I'll get back to you.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks very much for listening and I look forward to speaking to you again soon.