It is not enough to identify underperforming leaders; you must also address the problem.
Frontline employees are easy to identify when something is wrong because their role is task-oriented and concrete. When providing feedback to leaders, it can be more difficult to pinpoint problems due the complexity of their roles. Even when you can identify what’s not working, it may be difficult to pinpoint why and how it could be improved.
In order to address this issue, I collected data over the last five years from more than 7,000 leaders in order to help understand how and why performance of leaders can drop. As leaders get older, their performance becomes more dependent on the activities of those they lead. The research focused on team performance, not leaders’ abilities.
Performance reviews are designed to correct sub-optimal performance. It’s one of the most difficult parts of the process.
Look for these five things in leaders who are underperforming
The data analysis revealed five common errors that underperforming leaders commit when managing their team. These five mistakes are responsible for two-thirds or all poor leadership performances.
If you are faced with a leader who is not performing well and cannot see what’s wrong, here are the five first things to look out for.
1. Clarity
Leaders make the most common mistake of not being clear about what they want from their team. Over 90% of leaders in the research have overestimated the level of clarity that they can create. Leaders, on average, say that their teams remember 98% of what they have told them to be important. When asked how much their teams remember, leaders on average say 98%.
The first thing you should check is whether your team knows what the leader expects from them, and if they are aligned to support this.
2. Control
Most leaders make the mistake of being too controlling and directive. The leaders are often not able to perform at their best. This can lead to leaders becoming overwhelmed, and leaving no room for their team to take initiative.
Even when delegating authority has a clear financial benefit, studies show that leaders tend to only do this about 40% of time. When a leader complains about their team not being proactive enough, first look at the team culture that they are creating.
3. Confidence
Being in charge tends to boost people’s self-confidence, which can sometimes lead to an overconfidence. This is a common trap that leads to poor leadership.
It is less common to focus on the influence that leaders have on the confidence of their teams.
The team will not perform well if it doesn’t have confidence. My research shows that leaders are often so focused on their tasks that they don’t pay enough attention to the level of confidence that their team members feel about these objectives.
4. Openness
The same challenges are inherent in every leadership position – people will be less open and less willing to challenge them. Combining this with evidence, it is clear that people are more likely to rely upon what they know when in a leadership role. also shows a less receptiveness to context.
It is easy to see why leaders – whether or not they are aware of it – have to put in a lot of effort to make sure that good information reaches them.
Sadly, the fourth biggest mistake leaders make is to ignore this challenge or not invest in encouraging transparency. Without free-flowing data, decision-making is inexorably undermined.
5. Understanding
What is the final mistake that underperforming leaders commit? Failure to understand the impact of their own behaviours on team members. According to research , being a leader can make it difficult for a person to understand the perspective of others, and how their actions may affect others.
Leaders who don’t know their impact are less able to manage it, and get the most out of their teams.
Each of the five points above are – in some way – the inevitable results of being a manager.
Correcting errors
Performance reviews are designed to correct sub-optimal performance. It’s one of the most difficult parts of the review process. It’s easy to see that leaders aren’t performing well, but it can be difficult to understand why. It can be hard to know how to help leaders who are underperforming improve without this knowledge.
According to my research, the key missing link is understanding how a leader impacts their team.
If you identify that a leader is not performing well because of a lack in clarity and alignment then your solution, or at least first step, is to help them clarify and simplify their message.
If you find that the team of a leader lacks confidence, you can suggest a few techniques to help boost their confidence.
Understanding the problem is key to solving it.
Final consideration
When a leader struggles, it’s easy to think that they don’t have the right skills or aren’t up to their job. Each of these five issues is, to a certain extent, the result of being a leader.
Pre-emptive training of leaders on how to avoid and spot these five mistakes will likely be the most effective way to improve their leadership performance and avoid having to have difficult conversations about poor performance.
