It can be challenging to discover that the person on your team who you self-assessed as the star performer is actually a bad leader. I confronted this same situation in one of my senior corporate roles. Adept at managing up, they appeared to be leading their team well. Sadly, that wasn’t the case. On reflection, I wasn’t paying enough attention to the weak signals, and it wasn’t until I received direct feedback that I took action.
- Be Alert to Weak Signals
Being a leader of leaders means being alert to weak signals and signs of discontent across the teams. You then dig, check, and inquire into what might be going on to validate the rumbles and rumours before acting with integrity and purpose. Sense checking starts with informal and formal data sources. Formal sources are more accessible to source and validate. They may include, for example, data from engagement results, 360 feedback assessments, feedback from employee exit interviews, and other performance metrics such as productivity, staff turnover, absenteeism, stress levels, and any formal complaints.Informal sources include feedback you may hear or see from your direct report’s team members, peers, executive assistant (if they have one), and suppliers or customers. Informal feedback involves walking the floor and getting a sense of the workplace culture and dynamics. Is there high or low energy? Are team members engaging and connecting?
It can involve attending your direct report’s team meetings on occasion. Does your direct report do all the talking, or do they encourage their team to speak up? Is there banter and open discussion, or is the conversation stalled and stilted? Watching what’s going on isn’t about having an army of moles who monitor and track every move your direct report makes. You don’t want to turn your office into Big Brother, where every action is monitored and assessed. That’s stressful, unproductive and not a nice place to work. It will backfire, sending issues underground.
- Create Openness
You want to create a culture of openness and transparency. This approach is about helping, not hindering, coaching, not criticising, and supporting, not stressing out everyone involved. t’s being diligent and observant and talking with people. It’s being available and present – with the leaders who report to you and those employees who report to them. This is what great leaders do. They put people at the centre of their working day. - Strategically Assess
As you support and coach the leader, you want to take a strategic approach. The decision on your best strategy will depend on whether the root cause of the issue sits with you, the environment in which they work or their approach. As part of this process, you must actively challenge yourself, consider the impact you are having as a leader, and determine how and where you need to lift your game. You might need to spend more time coaching them or addressing any structural issues that are contributing to their behavioural gaps.Additionally, consider the organisation’s environment and operating context. Those factors might directly impact the leader’s behaviour or expectations regarding how they must lead. There might be steps to take to help your direct report better cope with the work environment. You also need to take a series of steps to uncover the leader’s awareness of their leadership gaps, their leadership perspective, the support available and how prepared you are to invest that time and energy.
- Support their Leadership Path
Everything starts with a conversation, and in this case, a series of coaching conversations. These conversations are focused on uncovering the leader’s level of awareness, their willingness to accept feedback, and their readiness to take the necessary steps to change, develop, and uplift their leadership. Throughout this process, you are supporting your direct report to turn off the autopilot and become deliberately thoughtful about the kind of leader they need to be. When leaders are clear on their leadership attributes and the gap between how they think they lead and how they actually lead, they are on a path to being the best leaders they can be. - Be Willing to Act
You are the leader’s leader, and with that comes the responsibility to provide courageous and constructive feedback when needed and to coach and support in a way that enables them to reach their leadership potential.
If those efforts fail to produce the necessary changes, then as the senior leader, you have a choice about the leadership standard you accept and ignore.
Written by Michelle Gibbings.
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