Bad Leaders Kill Profitability!
I completely understand how many daily issues demand the attention of a business owner, an executive, a manager, and even front-line supervisors. But if we're going to be the leader who truly does provide our team members with what they're looking for-and deserve-from us, we will have to make it a priority! Even for the folks in these roles with the purest and most unpersuaded intentions, keeping it a priority to be that leader can be tough. So, let's dig into how a bad manager can affect employees and how much profitability can be killed by a bad leader.
An article from Entrepreneur.com called "5 Ways Bad Leadership Can Destroy Your Business" shared this before the author went on to explain their list of five in detail:
Contrary to what you believe, you don't have a marketing or sales problem. Most businesses think they do. In reality, they have a leadership problem... As an entrepreneur, you can't hide in the background. By default, you're the person who will make the big decisions for your company. But, while leadership is something most entrepreneurs think they have, the truth is that few actually possess the skills they need to lead. And when you simply "play" the role of leader, rather than actually step up and lead others, your business can crumble as a result.
For what it's worth, that list of five had some direct correlations to several of the profitability killers we've already addressed! While the author specifically referenced "entrepreneurs," I can make a strong case showing how I've seen far too many folks in any of those roles I mentioned above indicating that they were leading simply based on their position or title. Here's what John Maxwell has said about that for as long as I've studied his work: "Leadership is influence. Nothing more, nothing less."
If that's still not enough perspective, let's add what I found in an article from Forbes.com called "Good Leaders Are Invaluable to a Company. Bad Leaders Will Destroy It." The author said, "When good leadership is in place in a company, it can be felt throughout the entire organization." Can I get an amen?
Shortly after that, though, the author said this about the impact of a bad leader:
Bad leadership can also be felt throughout the entire organization-only not in a good way. Corporate culture becomes a meaningless term where leaders claim it exists while employees shake their heads in frustration. There is a lack of clear, consistent communication from leadership to the employees. As a result, the office is run by rumor mill, politics and gamesmanship. Employees are uncertain of the company's goals and objectives for success and they have no idea how they fit into that picture, or what their level of importance is toward making it happen. Decisions for promotions are not based on integrity or talent, but rather they are based on who can talk the biggest talk or who is deemed to be the least threatening to the current leadership team. Employees are taught to play dirty against coworkers to get ahead by watching as it is continuously rewarded by leadership leading to the Lobster Syndrome of tearing one another down throughout the organization. The result of bad leadership is low morale, high turnover, and a decreased ability to have any sustainable success.
Although that article was written in 2013, it also addresses many of the profitability killers I want to help you avoid!
Here's the challenge we'll all face as leaders at some point or another: As we're juggling all the things that demand our time and attention, we'll have to keep the needs of our team members from being pushed down the priority list. It won't matter how well we understand those needs if we can't fulfill them. This can lead to our teams feeling unheard.
They May Stop Asking...
One of the first things I called your attention to in this process of addressing profitability killers, one of the things we covered as we looked at how it all starts at the top-and emphasizing how the best returns can be captured when that's the case-was the importance of changing our approach. I shared the example detailing how much influence I saw a team of hourly behavior-based safety observers earn from their direct peers simply because they listened to concerns, took action on what they could, and were intentional about following up. The supervisors and managers in the respective areas of that facility had often been notified of some of the same issues but either neglected to take action or just didn't follow up with the employee expressing the concern. In either case, that resulted in those supervisors and managers having less authentic influence with their teams.
Don't misunderstand my point here; I'm well aware of all the plates those supervisors and managers were spinning on any given day. Addressing issues required time they often didn't have, and circling back with the individual who brought it to them took even more. But how thin their time was usually stretched didn't change the reality that this lack of follow-up or follow-through was almost always perceived as the employees' concerns not being heard. And the old saying about perception being reality held true-at least for most employees who experienced this.
Before I close the loop on the impact that lack of follow-up had on the team as a whole, consider a time when you took an issue or a concern to someone in a leadership role. It could be in the workplace or a volunteer organization. Maybe even something you brought to an elected official. I won't ask you if you've ever had a concern like that go unaddressed; I'm sure we all have. I will, however, ask you to think about how you felt when it wasn't addressed. Did you feel devalued by that individual you took the concern to? Did it seem like they were disengaged in their area of responsibility? And how did that experience impact whether or not you considered them to be an effective leader?
Several years ago, I contacted two elected officials about an issue affecting most small businesses locally. I'll spare you the specifics, but I will share that one has yet to respond. I received only a canned reply from the other, which was likely sent by a minion in his office, saying that they appreciated me reaching out, but there was nothing they could do. I'm still more than a little frustrated about that. While I generally like one of them, I have zero respect for the other.
I realize you're likely more patient and forgiving than I am. Here's where I'll urge you to continue praying for Cindy![Editor1] But even the most patient and forgiving among us would still not consider either of those elected officials to have provided effective leadership, and you would have likely lost at least a little respect for them.
Regarding the supervisors and behavior-based safety observers, I'm convinced that the lack of follow-up that had become the norm set the table for ANY follow-through on the part of the observers to be viewed as remarkable! Those observers developed a significant amount of influence with their peers and helped make safety an almost cool thing to participate in. I'm not accusing the supervisors of being bad people; I am just suggesting that how they prioritized things often made an impression on their team members. The impression was a small example of how even the perception of bad leadership can affect employees and often spill over into lost profitability!
With that in mind, let's look at how much different things can be with a more responsive approach and the impact that positive leadership can have on an organization-then we will wrap this up with what we can do right away to provide that responsiveness.
The Impact of Leadership
In so much of what we've worked through in addressing each of the profitability killers to this point, I've referenced studies listing facts and data emphasizing the specific impact each one has on our bottom line. As much as I want to do that again here, contrasting the overall performance between teams with good and bad leaders, I'm going to fight that urge and make a play on your emotions instead! I realize that runs the risk of losing you with something so touchy-feely, but since you've hung with me this long, it's a chance I'm willing to take.
I want you to go to the place (or places) in your own career where you experienced each of the examples I just detailed living through personally; how painful it was to leave an organization I had been with for my entire adult life and watching team members stop going to their supervisors with concerns because they didn't feel heard. I'm intentionally not asking you to put yourself in my shoes because I'm confident that you've dealt with situations that were at least as difficult! Now consider how much different those scenarios would have been if the individual you were reporting to had been a great leader-or an even worse leader!
We'll all go through crap; that's inevitable. And so will the folks who are counting on us for leadership. How the leader handles it, though, can make a world of difference!
I found a fascinating article by Tom Rath on Gallup.com called "The Impact of Positive Leadership," which shared what appeared to be a fictional character named Suzie (but could have just as easily been you or me since it hit so close to home) detailing just how low the ratio of positive to negative interactions are for most of us on any given day. Rath's point focused on showing the overall performance improvement when we ensure the ratio is more heavily weighted to the positive. As he closed, he shared this as to how we, as leaders, can impact our entire culture by being intentional about increasing the number of positive interactions:
When leaders display positive emotions, others take note-and take action. Positive leaders don't sit back and wait for things to get better on their own. Instead, as they walk around the office, make calls, or write e-mails, they are always trying to catch excellence in action. When they spot a job well done, they call attention to what is right.
Since I'm sure you're tracking with me on the difference this can make, and hopefully had at least a little bit of a touchy-feely moment there as you revisited a time from your past, I think it's time to look at the last few simple steps we can take to build a great leadership culture and capture lost profitability!
[Editor1]I couldn't find an earlier reference; suggest something like "I urge you to pray for Cindy!"
