Employee Performance Often Reflects Poor Leadership Behavior

Performance issues are very often not employee performance issues, they are caused by poor leadership practice or organizational culture. The person who should be receiving the feedback is often the one giving the feedback. Performance management is generally not useful or meaningful. Research and practice tell us so, yet we continue to promote the myth that you can manage performance and that doing so leads to better performance, and fair distribution of recognition and bonuses. However, in reality many managers often view performance management as a tick box exercise, a popularity contest or a platform to air personal agendas. Performance management time often causes significant stress for everyone involved. For the recipient, it is often a time where they are wondering what will be said about them and the decisions that will impact their career, whereas managers often sees it as something that detracts away from doing their ‘real’ job and focusing on what they think are more important activities and tasks. This really is very rarely a win-win situation.

There are two types of managers that think they can manage performance viz. new managers, or bad managers. You cannot manage performance. You can support and enhance performance, harness and leverage strengths and skills, you can coach to potential and lead as example, but you cannot manage performance. Organizations must stop believing the myth that you can manage performance; especially in the ways that most organizations typically perform performance management tasks once a year. If you are doing performance management once a year, that should be your first clue to the actual value that your organization truly prescribes to the process.

The bad news is that we know it does not work, it is less than meaningful and does not have any of the intended outcomes that are usually displayed on the label on the performance management can. I have heard it described as a necessary evil, which seems a rather complacent vantage point that dooms the system and approach from the start. Rather than seeing it as a necessary evil, we as leaders can reflect on ways to make a difference.

Lets also address the whole comparison myth. With limited finances for performance budgets there is comparison. No matter how much you protest performance decisions aren’t based on comparison the simple truth it is. The quicker we accept and are transparent about it, the better placed the whole process will be.

Furthermore, organizations that reward and encourage competition and meritocracy are literally driven by these behaviors. Competition and being better than others is exactly what is expected and rewarded generally, so why at performance times is there a pretense that this is not the case? Showing how your value is based on how you are different to others is exactly what drives most performance reviews. Comparison is the evil that destroys all psychological happiness, yet it is often how performance decisions are made in light of financial constraints. You don’t perform as well as employee x, or your reward and compensation is based on relative performance etc. Be honest about it. Not owning and admitting this means that the comparisons are hidden by superficial solutions such as renaming your performance management processes or not sharing how decisions are made. Poor transparency and non-collaboration lead to a degradation of the performance system. Hopefully over time we will move to a way of personalizing performance reviews based on potential and value and not driven by comparison.

Many organizations are aware of this, and they are aware of the bad taste that performance season brings and leaves. Nothing is evidenced more by mass exodus once performance, progression and reward decisions are revealed. Organizations attempt to veil this by creatively renaming performance management processes into something that sounds trendy and different. The challenge is that what is truly in a name? If there is no behavior or process change that drives new ways of assessing and rewarding performance or addressing performance challenges, then any changes to your performance management name is simply rendered ineffective PR. If the culture does not change, and if behind closed doors performance management is still in its essence one of stack, rank, comparison and submission then a new fancy title is soon discovered to be just more of the same organizational propaganda. Organizations are not fooling anyone other than themselves. Your talent can see right through that thin veil.

I am always curious as to how organizations think that their talent doesn’t go into the process with eyes wide open, knowing that in the end it is often a meaningless exercise of hoop jumping. If people truly believed in the process and thought it was fair, equal and valid, they would not hesitate and jump into it wholeheartedly, yet it is more often the case that employees are slow to enter the performance cycle processes. Is it fear or complacency based on knowing that at its core, the system is broken and meaningless? People are intrinsically motivated by reward, seeing that they clearly don’t rush to engage in the process reveals some significant insights and failures.

Certainly money, rewards, bonuses and promotions are important. Though there are so many other things that employees find valuable in their jobs. Of course, everyone appreciates a bonus, or an annual increment. Who doesn’t? However, we need to move away from thinking solely in terms of finances as finances are limited, yet setting someone up for growth, stretch opportunities, providing many forms of recognition, providing meaningful opportunities, giving credit or supporting people are all ways that can be leveraged to let employees know they and their contributions are valued. Managers must think beyond just financials and think about what is important to each individual. That is not to say that you can ignore the financial aspects of reward and compensation as they are clearly an important part of the equation.

The tongue in cheek tone of this article is intentional as we should all be able to see the flowers from the weeds and be able to actively own and reflect on what we can do to be better leaders and to treat our talent with the respect, dignity, feedback and rewards that they deserve.

Make Good On Promises

Stop fake promising promotion. Of course, there are not endless resources to reward and progress people, and yet often talent is promised these along a year in exchange for the very thing that is often then held back by leadership when they get to the end point. I once had a manager that consistently said to me through a year that if I do X, it will demonstrate my leadership ability and we will make sure that is rewarded with promotion at the end of the year. Firstly I had been a successful leader for years at that point already, and secondly, they were just trying to manipulate. My trust and respect for that manager quickly waned after she failed to follow through. Sadly, this is not an isolated incident, this tends to be more the norm than the exception in many organizations and industries. Here is a novel concept: lead by example, treat your employees with respect, support them and give them meaningful work and they will think you are the greatest boss. Lie to them and manipulate them and they will despise you and ultimately leave due to a lack of trust.

Stop Abusing The ‘Exposure’ Myth To Encourage Performance

Countless times in my career I have heard from leaders, do this and it will give you great exposure. I have also coached multiple people who identify this as one of their key trigger phrases that alienates them from their leaders. Firstly, we must understand that “exposure” may in fact not be all that important or rewarding to some. Secondly, when you look at when this phrase is used, it is often for tasks or activities that no one really wants to do, and where there is no clear gain or reward for doing it. It typically relates to busy and transactional type of work. Let’s be honest, it’s used as a means to get people to say yes. Often that “exposure” plays very little role and impact on performance decisions. Certainly, you may work with senior leadership, or be given a stretch role, though this can often go horribly wrong for employees without the right supports, providing the right tools to do the job or not setting people up for success. If you can’t define the real value or reward for people taking on a task, then go back to the drawing board to figure it out. Let’s stop giving people false hope that “exposure” leads to something good as it very often does not. Early in my career I learned to ask what they meant by ‘exposure’ and what intended outcomes that exposure would result in. While having exposure to senior leadership, activities or tasks may have some positive outcomes, it very rarely leads to any significant gain for the employee in the long run. Of course, this is a generalization, but the core point stands. Don’t be surprised when performance wains or decreases and staff become dejected, as they are simply getting to understand that the promised land of exposure was simply a manipulation.

Make It Meaningful

When last did you speak with your employee about their skills and strengths? When last did you speak with them about what is meaningful to them? Have you recently connected with your employees about their career aspirations? How much do you know about your employee beyond performing tasks? Have you taken the time to sit with your employees and discuss and agree career goals rather than reviewing rear viewed perspective on task-oriented conversations? Often performance is viewed from the managers frame of reference. Therefore, meaningful is often viewed and interpreted through that perspective. This is not meaningful. This process is not about you. This process should be about supporting employees to perform and grow. Your legacy should not be beating people into compliance but leaving a legacy of developing staff to replace you when you decide to leave.

Also, understand how your employees like to receive feedback. If you have given them feedback in a way they can’t hear it, they will not be well placed to receive it. You cannot simply deliver feedback in the same way to everyone. Understand how they might react. What is meaningful to each individual you lead? A key leadership skill is to deal with people and to change your behavior in ways that pull people along and inspire them and stimulate growth and development. If you deliver feedback in the same way to everyone, I can guarantee that most of it will be lost.

Furthermore, understand what they find intrinsically rewarding. Different employees have different ideas and preferences about what is important. While compensation and recognition are often the key drivers, employees find a whole range of things rewarding. Knowing what these are is an important part of winning the performance review for everyone involved.  If you reward someone publicly that hates public attention, it will not have the intended impact. If you have a private conversation with someone without acknowledging they like the public recognition, then you are missing a trick. Does your employee value the opportunity to attend a training or a conference? Will your employee value the opportunity to do a stretch role? The options are endless. Often, it is not possible to always reward people financially due to fixed budgets or business performance, so if you know what people are motivated by; then you can still make this meaningful for people. Ask your employees what is important to them and what they find rewarding. Don’t get me wrong here, you still need to compensate people fairly according to market value and understand what your competitors are offering, as they often poach employees based on compensation and reward offers alone.

Respect The Experience of Experienced Hires

An employee’s performance outcomes start well before an employee joins an organization. If you are under hiring experienced hires by not respecting their experience and skills, you are already losing the performance game. Let’s be really clear about this, if you treat an experienced hire or any adult like a child or like someone new to the working world, no one wins. Conversations about reward, progression and compensation need to be transparent and honest. Typically, we see less than ethical promises of promotion and progression to get people to sign on the dotted line. When you hire people to lower levels, or insist on people blindly following career progression pathways, or promising rewards with no intention or ability to keep those, then you are setting up your employee for poor performance or unrealistic expectations. Personalization is key; if someone is performing well and even over performing, you must be willing to have a conversation about what that means outside of the templated progression pathways. Talent may wait a year or so, but they won’t wait indefinitely to move through a progression pathway if they are high performers. They will simply go to a competitor. Acknowledging and respecting experienced hires is a key determinant of performance outcomes. Don’t promise promotion if its not actually supported by progression pathways, don’t promise bonus percentages if you aren’t willing to get it into the contract and stop hiring people for less than market value. No one wins by putting a more experienced person in a more junior role. No one. While there is a short-term gain in reduced costs, in the long term it leads to mistrust, disengagement, and ultimately to employee turnover.

Stop The Myth About High Potential Employees

Often managers think that their high potentials don’t know they are high potential. Stop this nonsense. High potential talent know they are high potential. They would certainly be able to see that their outputs exceed those peers they work with and it is likely that they have been recognized in other jobs already. Acknowledge high potential. You would be amazed that high potentials will seek stretch assignments and want to grow and develop their existing skills – they are often not solely driven by finances. You can not treat high potentials the same as other employees during performance. You will be comparing apples to oranges. You must acknowledge them. Often you see this is not done, as there are limited finances to reward, yet acknowledging an employee or setting them up on path to grow and develop is as important as financial reward for some employees. People often leave jobs because of their leadership, not having meaningful work or feeling stagnated through no opportunities for growth. There is always another job that can meet the financial requirements of people. Furthermore, high potentials that are managed my low potential managers leads to a tenuous and threat-based leadership relationship that has a direct impact on performance. A manager who is threatened by a high potential will generally not accurately assess their performance positively or accurately out of fear that they are being outperformed.

Keep It Timely

This is so intuitive and so well known yet is often not followed. Addressing issues or giving praise is far more impactful when it is delivered close to the event. Speaking to someone months later or at the end of a performance year is meaningless. There will be no direct connection. The impact will be lost. Plus, you just come off as being a really bad manager. Often it feels easier for many managers to address these well after time has passed. That reflects your poor ability to engage in a key leadership behavior. Addressing performance and having difficult conversations is a key leadership skill. You can’t manage performance a year later, but you can support your employees to understand what they can do moving forward if you address the issues at the time.

Ensure Your Feedback Is Relevant

Before you give feedback, I always recommend that leaders take a step back and ask themselves these six questions.

1.      Is this feedback relevant to the employee’s role?

2.      Does this feedback relate to something that the employee can change?

3.      Have you waited more than a week from the behavior to give the feedback?

4.      Is this feedback something that reflects your own biases and preferences rather than their behavior?

5.      Does this feedback relate to organizational processes that the employee has no scope of influence over?

6.      Is the problem behavior more a reflection of a lack of leadership support or organizational politics?

Managers must give feedback that is directly relevant to the person so that they can work on making changes. If the feedback is based on organizational processes they can’t change, then there is nothing they can do about it. If its about your preferences and biases, keep those in check. They have no place in performance reviews. If you answer ‘no’ to the first two questions, and ‘yes’ to the remaining questions, then don’t give your employee the feedback. Reflect on where and who should get that feedback.

Avoid Personal Agendas

Managers often use performance review time to hash out personal agendas. I have observed this time and time again. Typically, you see poor managers use performance time to hash out personal differences and dislikes for the recipient. You may also see this as an opportunity for them to drive organizational change by making an employee the scapegoat to show how something doesn’t work. Mangers who are threatened by talent, often use the performance time to keep them in their place or to knock them down a rung. Review time should be objective and factual. If you are hashing out your personal issues that reflects you as a manager, not your employee’s performance. It is always personal for the person receiving your “feedback”.

The Surprise Demise

No one likes a surprise at performance time. No one. If you have not discussed issues prior to getting the performance review, or given the chance to improve through coaching, then you have no business sharing new constructive feedback in the performance review. This makes you a terrible manager. In fact, it shows your complete disregard for your talent, shows how you view your role, shows laziness and speaks to some of the very worst characteristics of bad management. No on wins in this situation. How much better would it be to address any performance issues or challenges when they happen, and to provide support and coaching to help your employee improve and achieve?

Terminating Or Counseling Without Cause

You can not give consequences without having previously counselled, supported and given the opportunity to work on and improve performance. If you are terminating someone for something that you have not given them feedback on, or the opportunity to improve you are just a bad manager and a bully. Always give timely feedback. Let people know what is expected. Provide support. Supporting staff works way better than punishing staff. You may sit behind your desk feeling justified, but it is always personal, and it has a major impact on the employee, their teams and their families. How would you like it if your manager treated you in this way?

Choose Data Over Subjective Opinion

Put your personal opinion aside and approach performance reviews with fact and demonstrable outcomes. Managers often forget the performance management process is not about them, but the employee. Yet they share their wildly unvalidated opinions about an employee with little fact. I always advise people to ask for the evidence when they get critical feedback. If it can’t be supported with data, then don’t offer that feedback. Who is to say that your opinion is even right or valid? When last did you check your biases? The best leaders know to provide feedback that is actionable and based on actual performance. Not something cooked up by a manager based on their personal preferences. Are you evaluating according to what is in the best interest of the organization and employee, or based on your personal preferences?

People Should Be Your Priority

As a leader, your people should be your key priority. Often managers focus on targets, yet who is it that drives work to achieve those targets? People are your greatest asset, yet often are not viewed as a priority by managers. They are valued for the transactional aspects of what they can do, but there is often little value or focus placed on supporting career goals, aspirations and matching work with strengths and skills. Giving feedback has direct links to employee satisfaction and performance. Go figure. It is so intuitive yet often managers fail to prioritize their staff and to giving balanced feedback

Be Clear With Action Oriented Expectations

While it is great to hear how wonderful a person is, or less than wonderful to hear how awful a person is, it is more effective to provide feedback based on demonstrable behaviors and outcomes. If it is not clear what is expected to be changed, then how can we expect people to change that behavior? Similarly, if everything is wonderful and  it is not clear why they are wonderful, then how do people know what to keep doing? Feedback should be action oriented, meaning that your people can learn about what to do differently and what to keep doing. Be specific. Make sure that they are very clear on the expectations and have been given the opportunity to go out and practice doing those expected behaviors. Very often I see performance issues based on people not knowing the expectations and having a lack of clarity in their role. That is not a performance issue, that is a leadership issue. Don’t give feedback to people because they aren’t performing based on your poor leadership behavior. Give yourself the feedback.

Look Forward, Not Backward

If you are focusing on looking backward and not forward you have already lost the performance management process. Focus on future oriented skill development, supporting people to acquire new insights, skills and behavior. Help people towards achieving their potential. If you are looking back, that is a poor reflection on your leadership skill. Let the past go. You should have already addressed issues at the time they happen. If you haven’t then shame on you. You can’t be harping on to employees about something they did weeks to months ago. You look like a nag. You look like a poor manager. Once you have addressed it once, move on. Let it go. Often people aren’t achieving their potential as they are not working on meaningful work, or not being supported to develop news skills or behaviors and generally are not even aware of what the actual expectations are. That reflects you as a manager, not their performance. Let’s get the narrative right. Have ongoing meaningful conversations about expectations, setting goals, and taking an active interest by listening to your staff about issues they face, and where they want to go in their career. Support them to get there. Often managers focus on the transactions of daily work tasks, rather than leveraging the skills and strengths of people to let them succeed. I know I would rather be seen as the leader that supported employees and left a great talent legacy in getting my team ready for their next step, rather than being a bully or micro-manager. What kind of leader do you want to be and be perceived as?

Constructive, Not Critical

As a previous clinical psychologist, I can confirm that generally humans tend to focus on the negative and overlook the positives. There is also a misconception that feedback needs to be good or critical. Let’s get this straight up front. Never give bad or critical feedback to your employees. Do you like wielding power over others? Rather give constructive feedback, which is about helping employees understand what they are doing well and what they could do to improve on those areas that may need improving. Constructive means it feels like it is to support and enhance future behavior, not to break people down. Constructive means it feels benevolent not malevolent. Constructive means it is balanced versus wholly positive or negative. Constructive means it is future oriented and about focusing on potential, rather than looking backward and reprimanding people. Let’s replace our performance narratives from critical to constructive.

Stop Manipulating HR Processes

So many managers in many organizations know exactly what to say to HR teams to move performance issues to a critical breaking point. Poor managers escalate without first trying to deal with issues. They escalate before giving the employees opportunity to work on issues. Terminating excellent employees using an HR process because they are a threat to your role is not performance management. That is bullying. These behaviors may support your personal agendas, but more so they have a direct and lasting impact on your employees, their families and the teams they manage. When you act in these ways and hide behind HR processes, you are not deserving to be in a leadership or management role. Speak with people. Counsel them appropriately. Give them support and encourage them. Making mountains out of molehills is poor leadership and poor HR practice. I would say in my experience this behavior eventually comes to light. Managers who do this may get away with it for years, but eventually their behavior will be exposed. So much is often revealed in exit interviews.

The Pitfall Of Micromanagement

Are you a micromanaging manager? Do you expect your employees to do everything the only way you say it can be done? Do you see your employees as competent and being able to deliver on their goals in their own ways? Who wants a automaton? No one is looking to be a clone. Cloning doesn’t work, yet we see this type of micromanaging more often that not. Managers, especially new or poor managers will not let their teams work towards goals other than in ways that are so stringently prescribed. There is no trust. There is not creativity. There is no room to grow. This typically happens with task-oriented managers who think their way is not only the best way but also the only way to do something. We also see this behavior in leaders who are threatened by their talent, especially high potentials; where micromanagement becomes a form of control, compliance and submission. If you treat your teams in this way, don’t be surprised you will get nothing beyond transactions and distrust. There will be no transformation, only transaction. Also, if something goes wrong, it is not based on something your employee has done or not done, it is all you. Leverage their experience, skills and strengths to achieve the goals. I recall one of my first leaders, once let me know what I needed to achieve and offered me support if needed. He let me go out and get it done without prescribing how to do it. I delivered and delivered well. I have also had a lot of prescriptive micromanagers, many of them unable to see there were and are other ways to get things done. While I delivered, it was miserable, and I ultimately left roles in search of better leaders. Micromanaging destroys relationships. You can’t give performance feedback to someone if you are the ultimate source of the problem as a micromanager.

Evaluate Behavior, Don’t Judge The Person.

Everyone deserves to be heard, respected and treated with dignity through the performance period. Poor performance does not equate to being a bad person, yet this is often what people receiving bad feedback feel like. Stop delivering feedback to people as if they were less than. Who cares about your opinion anyways? Who really is the bad one in this equation? Poor performance is less a reflection on the person performing the job and more a reflection on how they have been managed and supported.

How often have you received feedback or given feedback which seems to focus more on the person rather than their performance? What a terrible thing to do to a colleague and fellow human being. There is no situation where this should ever be acceptable. Using the excuse that its not personal, is just a way to console yourself. Of course, it is personal, it is always personal. Just because a person may not be performing does not mean they are not good people. There is a fine line here that only the very skilled leaders seem to understand. Poor managers tend to direct feedback at the employee and not the behavior. Leaders must think about their feedback and think about the consequence of it. If you are focusing on the person, you are off the mark, if you are focusing on what they do, you will be better placed to give meaningful and actionable feedback.

Stop The Leadership Blaming Culture

Leaders must take accountability for issues and risks. Yet we often only see leaders take credit for successes and push blame to others, typically to more junior members. That is shocking leadership behavior. There really is no excuse, and frankly you don’t deserve to have the title of manager or leader. Performance management is not about blaming others for your failures. How easy is it for managers to push the blame? This has real consequences for people. Stop. Pause. Reflect and do the right thing. It is so obvious when this happens, yet transferring blame is often ignored or accepted as part of the deeply ingrained organizational and leadership culture. Transferring blame and lack of accountability should be a leadership performance issue and dealt with accordingly.

Cross The Hierarchy Boundaries

Feedback is not a one-way street, or at least it should not be. Though often we find that it does not feel safe to provide feedback to more senior people. Often there may be cultural and actual barriers to doing so.  There is often a taboo on upward feedback in organizations. Why would leaders not want to hear from their staff about how they are doing? Allow junior staff to give feedback to those they are being led by. If people were encouraged and it felt safe to give feedback to their managers, there would be less problems. There would be a culture of growth, learning and transparency. Yet there is a very real and tangible fear of giving feedback to someone higher on the chain. Even if a leader asks for feedback, there is still often the dilemma of how much to say, how to say it and what is appropriate. Those requests are fraught with politics, power and fear. There is no denying.

Be Honest About PIPS In Addressing Performance Issues

Performance improvement plans don’t work. These are less a tool about supporting employees towards better performance and more a legal compliance tool used in the ultimate demise of an employee. Before putting an employee on a PIP, you must ask yourself if it is really their performance or if any of the factors discussed above are potentially in play. Employees that feel they are being watched or scrutinized do not perform. PIPs very rarely lead to positive changes in performance, they generally lead to termination. Before putting a person on a PIP do an honest reflection on the following:

·        Be realistic about timelines. Often the timelines in PIPs are unrealistic for any real performance change to happen. Giving short time frames is not supporting your staff to make those changes. Behavior does not change quickly.

·        Can you operationalize and clearly define what the expectations are? If you are giving broad sweeping feedback, you are setting your staff up for failure. How can they realistically make changes when the changes are not clearly laid out?

·        Have you provided previous feedback, coaching and support on performance issues prior to getting to the stage of wanting a PIP? The PIP should never be the first step in addressing performance issues. Rather be a leader and provide feedback, coach and have difficulty conversations before getting to needing a PIP.

·        Be honest about whether you have already made up your mind about the employee and this is literally just a documentation process. Self-reflection and integrity are key leadership skills and characteristics

I would recommend to HR professionals to be having these conversations with managers when they want people on PIPs. It is often not always as it seems. I would also recommend to HR to be analyzing managers behaviors towards giving feedback, using PIPs, turn over statistics and employee engagement data. Trend data can often be enlightening about managers behaviors. Similarly, take exit interviews seriously as they often reveal the core challenges around performance did not stem from the individual but rather from their managers. People leave bad managers.

Performance issues are very often not employee performance issues, they are caused by poor leadership practice or support. We know from research and practice that performance management is generally not useful or meaningful. This article encourages all leaders to move to a position of having meaningful conversations with employees around strengths, skills, potential and career goals rather than evaluating performance. Spending time getting to know what makes your employees tick and talking meaningfully with your teams is a far better means of motivating performance and changing behavior than evaluating it at the end of each performance year. Leaders have a responsibility for honest self-reflection and where they can change what they do when dealing with employees and performance issues. Leaders must start to be honest about the failures inherent in performance management and take an active stand around having more meaningful interactions. You and your employees won’t be disappointed. The first step is to take a stand and admit that performance management simply does not work.  

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