Blocked by the Leader-lites?

I have worked with poor leaders more times than I have worked with great leaders. These “leader-lites” are pervasive and can wreak havoc on a department or function or organization. In Marcel Schwantes article in Inc. “How Can You Spot Bad Leadership Fast?” (https://www.inc.com/marcel-schwantes/how-can-you-spot-bad-leadership-fast-watch-for-6-signs.html ), he lists six (6) telltale signs. I have taken a little license and assigned each a pet name:

1.???? The leader who looks out for No. 1 – i.e., they are focused on themselves, not the team. (The Narcissist)

2.???? The leader who hogs the spotlight, often taking the credit for team efforts. (The Credit Hog)

3.???? The leader who pretends they are never wrong. (Perfectionless)

4.???? The leader who is control-happy. (Micro Shark)

5.???? The leader who is a bully. (Bully Baby)

6.???? The leader who often is missing in action (MIA) – physically, mentally or both. (an Action Zero)

But I would add one more…

7.???? The leader who pretends they know when they don’t know. (Baby Hog)

Let’s talk about #7 today - the Baby Hog – because I had a conversation with someone at a conference recently who was struggling with a new “leaderlite” in this category. I have encountered pretenders many times in my career – both internally as an HR professional and externally as a consultant. But the prevalence of pretenders is (I think) increasing. This leader makes a good impression – articulate, polished, friendly, professional. They have good relations with their peers and superiors. They may be young in their career, inexperienced but very ambitious. They may be new to their level of management responsibility and/or new to the organization. They may be promoted from within due to the loss of the incumbent, or they may have “smooth-talked” their way into the position. They are very good at delegation and managing up. But they are also good at deception, assuming no responsibility, leading a team through manipulation and favoritism, and avoiding subjects and tasks where their lack of skill may be exposed. These leaders are not so good at managing a team based on results, objectivity and fairness, or managing strategically and planning ahead.

The difficulty with this type of leadership is that they seem to think – because they have negotiated their way into the position – their title and authority will protect them. And to an extent, they are right. They may not be as experienced or educated as needed, but they present well and give an impression of knowing more than they do. This leader uses a lot of consulting language – big words and abstract terms – that can hide the absence of experience or knowledge of application and actually getting the job done. They avoid expressing how to accomplish a strategic goal or assess operations, these are tasks below their level of authority. And because they have maneuvered themselves into a position of authority, they are hard to challenge.

What do you do when your leadership is creating problems rather than solving them? How do you manage up with leadership that is poorly equipped to lead? Every path you take carries risks because your leadership has the authority and therefore, the right to tell the story to their leadership as they perceive it. It can easily become your word against theirs if you disagree with them. Then you can become the target easily, the poor performer and/or a disgruntled employee scapegoat. That is an unfortunate attribute of the hierarchy.

Doing an end run around your superior to speak to upper management can be the riskiest approach of all because your immediate superior somehow sold themselves to the upper management. I have seldom, if ever, seen this approach work. Often, you have no proof of poor management or leadership – only subjective information and hearsay. Documentation is difficult to obtain, the damage from poor leadership is more insidious than open hostility or discriminatory actions. The damage is in chaotic management, shifting priorities, disrespect of staffers’ time and other deadlines, poor training or no training, constant crisis management, and bullying delivered in the guise of delegation, favoritism, and even public humiliation.

When this type of leader pushes back on your deliverables and tells you “you aren’t being strategic,” or asks, “where are your strategic goals?”, they are often using a playbook that “sounds” like management. But by refusing to work with you to define and solidify goals, they are using projection and distraction to imply that YOU don’t know how to do it – i.e., you are the sub performer. Often, the fallback position is head down, try to avoid being a target.

There are two alternative approaches that might work...

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