I love September, it’s the beginning of football season and it’s a great time to start self-reflecting and begin strategizing for the upcoming year. A few weeks ago, I began to share a list of the five biggest management traps ever. I’d only managed to make it to number three, so why don’t we wrap that up today? Let’s go!
A Quick Reflection on Management Traps
In part one of this list, I referenced a quote my book, The Leadership Playbook, which pointed out that management traps can happen to the best of us. Leaders are particularly susceptible to it when we lose focus on actively avoiding these traps or even worse, fail to have an exit strategy when we do. If we fall into these snares, all our coaching skills and personal principles won’t help break us free easily. No one easily escapes a trap or two of their own making.
Of course, if we remain grounded and focused – and have a good back-up plan or two- we can overcome these leadership challenges. As leaders in the middle (LIMs) it falls on us to thrive so we can create a #winningculture for our team, department, company, and/or region.
Let’s take another quick look at the five biggest management traps checklist before we pick-up from where we left off.
The Five Biggest Management Traps Checklist
- Trap #1: Coaching is difficult and redundant
- Trap #2: My team is already great
- Trap #3: Checking the box
- Trap #4: Allowing bottom performers to leave on their own timeline
- Trap #5: Not believing
Once again, I’ll add this disclaimer: If any of these mindsets sound familiar, fret not. I have the solutions to help you and trust me, you’ll need them because these last two? They’re the make it or break it traps.
Trap #4: Allowing bottom performers to leave on their own timeline
In my books, like Serve Up, Coach Down, I always expound on the importance of prioritizing top performing or dealing with decent performers who just have a tolerable case of a bad attitude. However, and this is a very big however, we can’t take our eyes off our poorest performers. Even worse, we cannot and should not tolerate their output and attitude to work. Why? We’re reaffirming to the rest of our team that this behavior is ok when it most definitely is not!
It might feel unsavory to remove bad performers from your team/company but, heavy is the head that wears the crown and all that jazz. A leader should actively manage all their team members and if one or two fail to meet our standards, they’ve got to be removed before they spoil the whole batch.
Taking that easy way out and lapsing back into the selfish, conflict-avoiding, unaccountable management culture…sends a message that is more important than the action. It also leads to a crisis of sorts, by the time underperforming employees make the decision to leave, they’ll most likely have taken their quality of work down to rock bottom, and the other team members will have noticed it.
One Bad Performer Can and Will Spoil the Batch
Look, this is a well observed fact in nature. Have you ever thought about why one bad fruit will spoil the whole batch? Well, their fungus, bugs or whatever, when kept in an enclosed space with other nearby fruits, will spread their infection.
In the human world, more specifically, in the business world, allowing poor performers to leave of their own volitation can send a terrible message. It says as a leader, you do not value those who go above and beyond, the real team members who constantly strive to do their best. This in turn will bring the whole company under the microscope, especially during those dreaded audits. The thing that’ll be on everyone’s tongue? Why the hell is this employee still here and could this be a sign of favoritism (this one can lead to a host of terrible speculations) or worst, blackmail? I’m telling you guys; this trap has the biggest potential for real-life fall out, even beyond your company’s bubble.
Now let me be clear, go ahead and give those underperformers a chance to improve. However, if they still can’t hack it? They’ve got to go. Anything else will sully your leadership reputation or give the impression that this is an ok status quo. Remember,
Hire fast, fire faster, and hold everyone accountable no matter how much conflict ensues.
Trap #5: Not Believing
This one’s a heartbreaker. When a leader doesn’t believe in himself or his team, it’s time to wave that white flag. You’ve lost the war, my friend. I personally refer to this trap in my book as the “I don’t believe we can, but I don’t believe my team knows that, so it’s ok” trap. If the coach leaves the field or turns his back on the game, trust me, people notice. This same modus operandi is applicable in corporate leadership.
The leaders’ interactions betray their infidelity: Belief can’t be faked, not long-term at least, and not in the dynamic of team interaction. As leaders, we not only need a play-to-win mentality but also have to believe it. If we lack faith in our teams ability to win, then we shouldn’t be leading them.
This is another case where you can easily sully your reputation. If you’re junior management this will cripple your growth and your bosses will lose faith in your ability to lead.
Yes, being a leader is hard and you will have to make some tough choices, feel confused and get overwhelmed sometimes. That’s ok, but when we apply logic, instead of realistic thinking, the correct path becomes clearer. I assure you, the only thing that keeps anything from being possible in leadership is not believing in your team nor encouraging your team to believe in themselves.
Final Thoughts on Avoiding Management Traps
Management traps are par for course as leaders. However, when we mandate coaching activities, focus on improving the skills of our team and ourselves, the course gets a lot less rocky. Also, whatever actions and accountability measures we put in place should always be sustainable. Any other approach is wasting company time and resources. Finally, remember your team is a direct reflection of your leadership and while you shouldn’t have an idealized version of them, you definitely need to believe in them. If they’re not worth believing in, hire fast, fire faster. You’ve got to believe in what you preach and do.
Let me help you avoid making the biggest management mistakes around. I offer workshops and executive coaching sessions to corporate companies big or small. I even give keynotes on the topic, too. Hope on over to my workshop, keynote and coaching pages for more information. Don’t forget to CHECK OUT MY LATEST demo video!
