Managers in IT are terrible: 5 things you can do about it

You will probably have heard the phrase, “people join a company and leave a manager”.

In other words, people join a company for its reputation and the promise of the job they will do. Then many people will leave that company because they didn’t feel their manager was on their side enough.

Why is this a problem? According to pollsters Gallup, 51% of staff (in the USA) are not engaged, and 17.5% are actively disengaged. 

What that means is about half your staff are doing as little as possible at work, and an additional 17% of your staff are actively sabotaging your division’s performance.

Employee engagement is primarily determined by what their manager does (or doesn’t do). Which is why unskilled bosses disengage people enough to make them leave the company.

If you could get your managers to improve engagement just a couple of percent, that rising tide will raise all boats: customer service, strategy execution, quality, innovation, you name it.

This will all be familiar to you because most of your managers never spent much time developing themselves as managers.

Too often managers are skilled and motivated staff who get promoted up a level into a position that might require a similar knowledge base but that requires new skills of its own (management skills). If they sufficiently master team management skills, they get promoted to a “manager of managers” role – another different set of skills. And so it goes up the line – right up to the top job.

I.T. is particularly known for terrible managers: superstars that say yes to everything and do everything themselves, expecting their staff to be mini-me’s. Or non-managers, who stay doing technical work and ignore people management activities.

Of course it’s not their fault, the only promotion path (and get paid more) is to become a manager, so we force ourselves into becoming managers. I.T. is full of technical-shaped people squashed into manager-shaped holes.

The good news is that this situation is completely solvable. There are scientifically-based and constantly evolving good practices that you can adopt.

Here are five things you can do to turn it around.

1. Nothing – it’s “good enough”

Good people are resilient, resourceful, and smart, and will put up with a lot before they quit. Work gets done – otherwise someone would be fired and you could replace them with someone better.

You can live with this – you already are. Well actually it isn’t good enough, especially if you need something better than you have today.

2. Send managers on a transformational leadership development programme and hope it fixes them

While these offsite programmes can be transformational for many individuals, most programmes are missing the months of follow-up activities that actually make the professional shift in your business. Leadership development away days without a year-long embedding programme are like being sold a nice suit and hoping you dress well for the rest of your life because of it. It’s just unlikely.

3. Work out a development plan with each manager

Target specific skills and behaviours they need to develop. Effective development plans often include setting up mentoring with a role model, a means of getting feedback on their leadership style and what’s missing – for example a 360 degree feedback survey. You might engage an executive coach to make this happen.

4. Change what is required of your managers

Your managers’ behaviour is determined by what their environment demands of them and what it lets them get away.

This will give you the biggest bang for your buck: Make sure your operating model, inter-team engagement processes, KPIs, quality standards, rewards and punishments all work in concert to demand good management behaviours. Don’t rely on performance reviews once or twice a year – they’re hopeless for engaging staff and often have the reverse effect.

5. Lead by example and ensure that people follow your lead.

This costs nothing but requires you to be a consistently good leader. Here are some tips:

• Know what “being professional” means to you and be that all day, every day.
• Develop your staff – find out what they want in life and at work, and develop a plan – with them – for them to get it.
• Be interested in people, give people clear responsibilities and boundaries, and let them get on with it.

You are always leading by example, make sure you’re setting the right example.

My advice is start with number 5, and involve your managers in designing the solution. For example, have a conversation about, “what does being professional look like for us?”

There are innumerable resources on what are good management and leadership behaviours. You may have your favourites, and I’ve listed some below for starters. Feel free to ask in the comments below if you have a specific question.

• The Performance Pipeline – what is required of a manager at each level of the organisation.
• The Leadership Challenge – The essential leadership behaviours.
• The Leadership Circle – a good tool for measuring leadership effectiveness of your managers.
• Influencer – science-based method for changing behaviours at work.

I’ll leave you with this interesting talk from the writers of Influencer illustrating how dramatic behaviour change is possible with much less capable people than your managers.

 This article was first published on LinkedIn.