Why is it so hard for managers to lead well?

According to scholars and practitioners, managing others has four main components – planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. All four are equally important, but as we see time and time again in employee exit interviews, leading others seems to fall by the wayside. In May 2023, FlexJobs surveyed 2,600 professionals about their job satisfaction and found that 42% of workers were actively considering quitting. Of the top 10 reasons for wanting to quit, four were directly related to leadership and management: poor work-life balance (29%); toxic company culture (27%); feeling undervalued (26%); and a bad boss (22%). These findings align with a common workplace truism that people join companies and quit bosses.?

What is it about working with others that is so difficult to do well? We believe the underlying cause is that managers aren’t actually trained in how to manage. A team member does well, is promoted, and then is expected to know how to manage others. This rationale assumes that because an employee did well in their prior role, they must be capable of managing others who also do that job. But it just isn’t that simple. It is imperative that new managers are trained in how to lead others because those “soft skills” aren’t always so easy to cultivate for oneself.??

First of all, interpersonal skills can be difficult to master because many times we don’t know what we’re dealing with. While employee behaviors are observable, the motives driving those behaviors are not always straightforward or known. People and their emotions can be fickle, and many times team members are unable or unwilling to express what they are feeling. Therefore, too often managers have to guess at motives. While some with naturally high emotional intelligence (EQ) can guess correctly, understanding employee motivations is too important to team performance to leave to guesswork. And EQ is a skill that can be learned, but it takes time and commitment by both the employee and their organization.?

Second, managers must make judgements on what they see. They can’t read minds, and, if the office culture doesn’t encourage speaking up, they are forced to rely on observations of behaviors, words people use, and body language to identify the pertinent dynamics in the workplace. Their interpretation of those observations can be, and often are, wrong.?

Third, not all managers are self-reflective on their own behaviors and the impact those behaviors may have on their team members and overall performance. Some may believe they are leading well only to be undercut by their actions. The form of communication managers choose – and even their word choice and intonation – can influence how their messages are interpreted by their teams so that their intended message is understood in a completely different way than intended. Managers who fail to reflect on their own actions, intentions, and outcomes in the workplace also tend to dismiss constructive feedback that might help them improve their leadership effectiveness.?

There are many factors that impact situations and a manager’s interpretation of that situation. As humans, we all rely on assumptions and previous experiences to make sense of the world. We view the world through a lens. If the behaviors of our team members – and the consequences of those behaviors – match our assumptions, our beliefs are reinforced, and we encourage similar behaviors next time. When they don’t match our assumptions, however, we can feel uncomfortable, leading us to replay the situation and re-examine what happened. For managers lacking confidence in their own skills (especially those not prepared to manage), the temptation to over-analyze the situation, people’s behaviors, and presumed intentions can be overwhelming. To avoid escalating a challenging situation, managers must be able have difficult or uncomfortable conversations with their team members, but too often they are unprepared or reluctant to do so.?

This month we’re exploring interpersonal skills and why it is so important for managers to develop so-called “people skills.” Yes, managers need technical skills, but it’s the interpersonal conflict that so often derails a team. Many excuses – espoused or not – are given for why managers are not trained in interpersonal competencies: we don’t have time; we don’t have money for professional development; everybody knows who to do this; or these are natural skills that cannot be learned. Instead, we need to flip our mindset: do we have time for teams to be fighting? Do we have enough money to compensate for a team not meeting their goals? Do we truly understand why we’re struggling to retain talented team members? If the answers to these are no, how can we cultivate a mindset of growth and continuous improvement for our current and future leaders??

There are many ways to learn about and grow interpersonal skillsets including through a personal coach, workshops, academic courses and trainings, and mentoring. Finding the right method for growth that fits your schedule and budget needs while building on your natural talents will reap dividends in the future.??