Three Signs Your Boss Needs Help

The best leaders know they have room for growth and seek feedback and the support of competent colleagues to aid their development.

Others don't. Here are three signs that your boss is floundering. Whether they accept your help may mean the different between them - and their team - sinking or swimming.

1. They Deflect

When you ask them a straight question that puts them in the hot seat, they turn the question on you.

Imagine you’re in a meeting to review business performance:

You (Product Head): Revenues have been flat for 3 months. What plans are in place to address this?

Chief Revenue Officer: Let’s talk about the new product release that is behind schedule.

They try to turn the spotlight on you.

So what do you do?

You (Product Head): We can talk about that in a moment. Let’s understand why revenues are flat on sales of the current product portfolio.

This can continue for a while, with the leader seeking to deflect attention from their performance – or the performance of their team. Each time, return to the topic and keep asking constructive questions respectfully.

Addressing the Tendency to Deflect

If this trait of refusing to look at their own performance or behaviour, of being defensive, and of pivoting to criticize others becomes a trend, what are your options?

Do you enjoy strong trust with the leader? If yes, you can share your observations – and how it influences others to mirror the same evasive behaviour.

If you don’t enjoy strong trust with the leader, you might engage peers or their boss to underline the importance of addressing issues professionally and transparently. The objective is to provide support and discuss ways to handle challenges that are in the individual leader’s, and the business’s control, not to vilify or humiliate a person.

You could enroll the support of a coach, who brings a neutral, dispassionate and compassionate curiosity. This can provoke greater self-reflection and awareness – and can help the leader accept that a question about their performance does not diminish them (but their defensiveness and deflection may well do).

What is potentially the most dangerous type of deflection?

Deflecting feedback.

If a leader dismisses feedback, and makes excuses whilst blaming others, and is willfully blind to open or anonymous feedback, it could be a long journey to enlightenment. Leadership is a lonely job – and feedback is a fundamental for growth and success. Deflecting feedback is a sign of a leader in decline.

2. They Decide Alone (And Are Always Right)

They take quick decisions that impact business strategy without consulting the organizational owners or subject matter experts.

This might be due to a:

• Misplaced belief that they know best
• Belief that others expect them to always have all the answers – and not knowing signals weakness
• Desire to consolidate power through their hierarchical designation, rather than their competence.

Rationally, they hopefully realise that:

• It is impossible to know best in every situation.
• Their behaviour alienates, disempowers and demotivates their team.
• Whilst people initially respect designations, this disintegrates rapidly if they detect a determination to be right, at any cost. And the costs of such behaviour to the business can be devastating.

Addressing the Tendency to Decide Alone

Understand how the leader likes to receive feedback.

If they value hard data, show how their decisions have impacted performance.

If they care about people, highlight how their lack of consideration and solicitation of others’ expertise, has demotivated colleagues.

If they care about culture, emphasize how team members are beginning to model their behaviour of deciding in a vacuum – and how this is causing sub-optimal decision-making and dis-engagement among team members.

3. They Build a Human Fortress

They create an in-group of a favoured few - essentially building a human fortress, not easily penetrated by the unfavoured many.

The Best-Case Scenario

In the best-case scenario, they select people who are valued leaders, who connect well with others, and who are able to influence the boss with considered, objective insights, based on feedback and data from a diverse group of employees. These trusted advisors are likely loyal organizational stewards, who are motivated by the bigger picture, and operate keeping the company’s goals top of mind.

The Mistaken Meritocracy Scenario

In some cases, the leader becomes lazy, and relies on people who have performed well in the past – because they can be trusted to deliver. The leader believes they are being meritocratic, because they are choosing team members who have a proven track record.

In doing this, the leader overlooks their responsibility to develop all team members, regardless of where they sit in the organization. The trusted few become the chosen ones – and other team members miss out on opportunities to grow. The leader exposes themselves to over-reliance on this small group, and by signaling a lack of confidence in other team members, unwittingly demotivates them and paves the way for under-performance. ?

The Worst-Case Scenario

In the worst-case scenario, the boss selects ‘yes-people’ or ‘kiss-ups’, who toe the line and reinforce the boss’s skewed self-perception and ill-considered decisions. The boss may use the feedback they receive from the ‘yes-people’ to justify their behaviour, ‘Well, Sid agrees with my take on that…’

In extreme cases, the leader may defend the actions of their in-group to the point of the indefensible, such as in cases of non-compliance or unethical behaviour. In doing so, the boss is completing a sad cycle. They defend the unprincipled behaviour of their favourites, just as the favourites have defended the disreputable behaviour of the boss.

Addressing the Tendency to Play Favourites

Again, depending on how the leader prefers to receive feedback, you could:

Share data on attrition levels and exit interview statements – or comments on employment forums.

Share a story from a different organization where the leader exhibited this behaviour and the impact it had on performance and retention.

Appeal to their values. You can create a cautionary tale that aligns to many values. If the leader values achievement you can highlight how favouring the few stunts the growth of the many. Or if the leader values opportunity, you can emphasize how the lack of opportunity and access to the leader is reducing opportunities to learn and upskill team members.

How You Serve Up Help Matters

The how of help can be more challenging than the what or the why.

This is where your insight into the leader is critical, and your understanding of who and what influences them is essential – as is your ability to navigate organizational politics.

• Suppose you know your boss only listens to their skip level leader - do you have a relationship with that leader, or an organizational culture that allows you to flag concerns directly to a skip level – with confidence that your feedback will be accepted and acted upon?
• Is there safety in numbers? Could you approach your boss, together with peers, to diplomatically, and directly, share observations?
• Do you trust a stakeholder outside the direct reporting line to best deliver feedback?

Naturally, the how of your communication matters – so staying calm and constructive, using objective data is important.

And remember, whether the leader appears to accept or reject the feedback is not the point. The objective is to inspire a change in their behaviour – so measure the impact of your intervention in terms of the subsequent turnaround in their actions.

Andrea Stone is an Executive Coach, supporting growth and success in current and future CXOs in global, dynamic organizations. She works with leaders and their teams to identify gaps and co-create a path to higher performance and satisfaction.

? Andrea Stone, Stone Leadership