Feature

When a good worker becomes a bad manager

Sudipta Dev analyses why great individual contributors often fail when promoted to managerial roles.

The need for managerial talent makes organisations promote their best workers into key leadership roles. The only catch is that these professionals who excel as individual contributors do not always possess good management skills. Many a times continuous training to develop their leadership and people management skills makes no difference. An organisation loses a good worker for a bad manager.

Techies are not always the best people’s person and can be very individualistic. So is it necessary for organisations to put those people who work best in isolation, into team management positions? Experts seek to differ on this issue. “Excellent technical workers can be provided career paths in technical areas. In the earlier years the IT industry did not have such opportunities. However, today job roles such as solution experts, architects and R&D have emerged. Such roles provide career growth as well as job satisfaction to highly technical people,” says Pradeep Pendse, Dean, Systems & e-Business, Welingkar Institute of Management Development & Research. He believes that high-end technical specialists can be leveraged by creating a think tank, which is another way to get the best out of such people.

"They can be elevated and grown as champions in their own domain. This will result in the creation of a highly specialised work force" - M V Subramanian COO, Co-Founder & Director, Focus Infotech

M V Subramanian, COO, Co-founder & Director, Focus Infotech, agrees that it is not necessary for an organisation to place professionals who are individually excellent workers into managerial roles, “They can be elevated and grown as champions in their own domain. This will result in the creation of a highly specialised work force, who will act as knowledge repositories and guides/trainers for the organisation. The individual can work towards improving the organisational efficiency in their respective domains.”

The issue is however not as simple as it appears. All career-minded professionals want to follow the growth path and in the process they are put in positions where they have to manage teams. An organisation also knows that if it does not put these people in leadership positions if will be impossible to retain them. “It’s a typical Catch-22 situation. Professionals should not be given managerial responsibility if he not up to the mark, but if he isn’t given that, the employee will be de-motivated and quit, therefore he is given and found wanting and then asked to leave …. And so goes the circle,” says J P Santhanam, Director, SecureSynergy. He adds that very few organisations have the time and inclination to specially train its employees for the next role. So it is a difficult situation and does not have a simple answer or a solution.

Leadership development

"Professionals should not be given managerial responsibility if he not up to the mark, but then the employee will be de-motivated and quit" - J P Santhanam Director SecureSynergy

Putting these new managers under a mentor is one of the most effective leadership development efforts. Santhanam points out that organisations must understand that though conventional skills training give people new techniques and methods, it does not necessarily develop their maturity, belief, or courage, which is so essential for the development of managerial and strategic capabilities. “It will have to be an ongoing and committed effort from the management and not half-yearly or yearly ‘dos’ at some resort with fancy speakers and fancier gimmicks. If an organisation can help an employee go through this learning curve, they would succeed in making them better suited for the responsibilities and tasks of a manager/leader,” he adds.

It is necessary for the delegation of responsibility to be in a planned and phased manner. “The organisation should ensure that challenges are provided in such a way that the individual values the need to become a leader. If the organisation decides to prepare them for such responsibility, it should identify the risk of making the individual a leader at an early stage and a plan should be drawn to mitigate the risk,” says Subramanian. At Focus Infotech it is ensured that enough responsibilities are shouldered by the individual early on to nurture leadership. The company also provides ample opportunities for individuals to experiment and take risks/decisions that are strategic in nature.

Why leadership programmes fail

It is a known fact that the much-hyped leadership development programmes are not always successful in meeting the objectives. The learnings of these programme seldom make a difference on-the-job. It is a continuous process which needs concerted effort from the management, and this does not always happen. Pendse explains that leadership development programmes often fail because they only create awareness and teach a few techniques, “They need to be supported by follow-up actions by senior management by way of providing opportunity to such persons to face leadership situations. Management should also be tolerant towards mistakes made and coach them, not reject them for mistake and label them as poor managers.”

Santhanam agrees that leadership programmes are not successful because most of them are quick fixes, “They use make-believe metrics that measure activity rather than capability, outdated thinking about ownership of the efforts, putting the onus on the coach or the mentor to deliver some silver bullet or ‘mantra’ to quick fix all shortcomings and inabilities.”

The isolation barrier

In its effort to quickly fill in managerial positions, organisations often promote people with less experience as managers. Sometimes the team finds it difficult to accept one among themselves as their boss. Pendse advises organisations to put the worker through a process which involves combination of real-life experiences under the supervision and formal training which help him to discover his potential as a manager.

“Conceptual skills is another area which is required as a manager as opposed to the operational/ delivery focus. Involving people in multifunctional projects such as Six Sigma, setting up new business units, etc., could be great opportunities for stimulating thinking and stretching the person’s conceptual skills which are very essential in managerial activity,” adds Pendse.

He points out that delegation is one aspect which many new managers quite often fail at. They feel that with their own superior skills they can do a job better than giving it to somebody else. “Organisations must coach the new manager on the tasks which need to be delegated and also support him with staff to take charge of the work which he was doing when he was a good technical worker.”

Subramanian asserts that the skill measurement system provides an effective solution by dramatically accelerating the identification, acquisition and improvement of critical management skills. Focus Infotech identifies the potential in an individual well in advance and personal development plans are prepared as per his/her performance and abilities. An individual is sent for training and coached according to his skills gap analysis. Continuous follow-up and monitoring ensures the success of the training programme.

"Research analysts and designers continue in their respective roles giving an excellent performance along with high growth prospects in their organisations" - Karthik K S Founder & CEO 24 x 7 Learning

The question is: Is it possible for an individual to really change? “The individual may not change his personality but his attitude towards the new responsibility can be changed. Once the attitude changes, he would be more receptive and interested in the new responsibility,” answers Rahul Mulay, General Manager (Operations), Harbinger Group. He reminds that such problems are common where a technically-oriented professional with no leadership aspirations, for instance a senior tech lead or a technical architect interested only in technology, is asked to include managerial responsibilities in his profile. Or the case of a top-notch sales professional being asked to manage a sales team when he is not interested in the role.

The concern areas are where human interaction is less like research and IT architect/design. “Research analysts, designers, etc., continue in their respective roles giving an excellent performance along with high growth prospects in their organisations. However, there is no denying the fact that over time, if these workers are put into managerial roles, they tend to become isolated from the rest of the organisation that results in a gap in communication, mutual understanding, acceptance of new ideas and knowledge, and even faith and trust of those on both sides,” states Karthik K S, Founder & CEO, 24 x 7 Learning. He advocates decentralised control and a two-way communication to avoid isolation. In his organisation, Karthik encourages open communication that helps employees at all levels to share the information and knowledge or any other issue more freely that leads to better performance.

Even if the end-result is envisioned to be good, change is always disturbing—for an organisation as well as an individual. It is the will power and skills of an individual that can make him a good leader.

ec@expresscomputeronline.com