Why Do Incompetent Leaders Get Promoted?

Gather ‘round kids, it’s story time.

What have we got today? Ah yes, a story in the workplace that's as common as a penny: it's The Employee With a Terrible Boss.

Once upon a time there was an employee that had a terrible boss. They didn't like their boss, were afraid of them, and went to work every day in a really toxic work environment. The other employees in the small department of about 7 or 8 people were also all afraid of, and didn't like this boss. The leader did things like badmouth other employees, was spiteful and retaliated against people, had clear favorites, was controlling and a micromanager, wasn’t open to any feedback or any one else’s ideas, the list went on and on. It was a really hostile and terrible situation.

This employee, along with several others, was pretty disengaged and actively looking for another job on a regular basis to see if anything else was out there because they couldn't stand their job due to this terrible boss.

At one point, another employee did go to HR and report some of the behavior of the boss, but nothing came of it and so as a result, all the other employees were afraid to report anything to HR because they believed nothing would come of it, and they were also afraid that the boss might find out and that they would be retaliated against.

Things got so bad that at one point all the employees in the department talked about coming together and writing a letter to report to higher-up leadership about the terrible behavior and performance of this boss, but they ultimately didn’t because they were too afraid that they might be retaliated against, so nothing happened. They all just remained pretty disengaged and checked out.

Good news on the horizon! One day, the employee found out that their boss was in line for a promotion to move even higher up into the organization, even though they were terrible. So the employee stopped looking around for other jobs thinking, “I can sit this out for 2 or 3 months, and then once this leader gets promoted, they'll be out of my hair and I'll go back to not hating my job every day.” And yes, the leader did get promoted inside the organization because the organization had no idea how terrible they were due to the fact that they never asked for feedback about leaders, and they didn't consider feedback from the team as a factor in choosing whether or not to promote leaders.

Eventually, the employee got a new boss who was kind and who they liked. This new leader was great and the employee ended up liking their job again, they became way more engaged and stopped looking for other jobs. Great news!

Meanwhile, the terrible leader was now in charge of other teams with an even higher up, more senior role in the organization. What a damn shame. And this, kids, is one way that terrible leaders get promoted and continue to move up inside organizations.

The end.

This happens all the time.

In organizations, people get promoted who are not great leaders because organizations are not asking for feedback from employees about their leaders.

There is no shitty leader in the world whose team loves them. There is no great leader in the universe whose team despises them.

Companies lose great employees by continuing to promote, or not be able to identify bad leaders. Asking for feedback is one of the surest ways to avoid this.

And when it comes to asking for feedback from employees, you can't do it once a year. It should be done on a consistent, regular basis; once every four months or six at the most.

Go to employees and ask, “How do you feel about your boss, what are they doing great, how are they performing, do they embody the values and defined behaviors of our culture, how could they be better?” and most importantly, “How comfortable do you feel giving honest feedback here about your boss?” If they don’t feel extremely comfortable then you know something is wrong that needs to be addressed.

Here are three compelling reasons why this is a MUST for organizations:

1) This is one way to prevent leaders being on their best behavior with the leadership team while being a toxic, poor leader whose team despises them and feels unsupported or unvalued by them. Bad leaders destroy companies by ruining great employees, period.

2) If you don’t ask and create these types of opportunities for feedback and coaching, how do you expect leaders to ever improve? You give employees feedback to help them be better, it’s ridiculous to prevent leaders from that same benefit.

3) When you do this as an organization you are proving that the experience of your employees matters to you.

Be intentional, go and ask. An “open door” policy is not enough. People are either afraid to come forward or tell the truth for fear of being retaliated against, or they don't believe anything can change because organizations are not being loud and clear about this being a priority.

Make sure that leaders are exceptional, and that the people you promote into leadership positions and move up in the organization are phenomenal. A simple, easy way to do that is to ask your teams for feedback. And don’t just ask for fun, act on it and make things better.

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This article was created by Galen Emanuele for the #culturedrop. Free leadership and team culture content in less than 5 minutes a week. Check out the rest of this month's content and subscribe to the Culture Drop at https://bit.ly/culturedrop ?