Is your employee underperforming, or just outgrowing your supervision style?
Most managers have little or no understanding of the relationships required to draw their people to the level of performance required in their work. With growing emphasis on tasks and results, supervisors have become less concerned with employee development.
Unfortunately, this hard-pressure results-oriented relationship between the supervisor and the employee tends to generate increasing levels of underperformance in the workplace.
When employees are labeled “underperformers,” what really occurs in many cases is a mismatch between the manager’s style of supervision and the employee’s level of dependence or independence. What managers have to understand is that each employee relates to authority differently. Some workers need close supervision while others thrive when working on their own. Many people make the transition from dependence on authority to self-reliance without help, but still others are stuck at specific stages and need some catalyst to move to the next level of independent performance.
The reality is that each employee can be effectively stimulated to perform better simply through the impact of the supervisor’s leadership.
Let’s review some actual situations. An employee with limited skills was assigned the front desk reception function at a small technical company. The individual quickly earned the label of a “non-performer” because she did not find work on her own. Many assignments were not completed and those that were, seemed to take forever, with results below expectations. She did manage the telephone reception really well, but that requirement was a limited portion of her job.
The only training she received was based on self-help modules that she had to learn on her own.
The problem here was with the supervisor. As a solution, the supervisor was given instructions on how to direct work during an assignment, help the individual decide what to do and how to do it, and review each assignment for effectiveness and improvement needed.
What this required, however, was a lot of work from the supervisor. Increased effort in the short term is often the case, but, unless organizations are perfect at matching individuals to the work, supervisory attention is what it takes. With support, the “non-performing” employee began to understand what makes each assignment work well. Her assignments were increasingly successful, earning her recognition from each of the people assigning her. Today, this employee initiates, creates and completes work at a level that surprises her supervisors.
A second example is an individual who, without much formal training, had learned to be a computer programmer over time. This employee was instructed and directed by a senior programmer who literally solved all problems. Recently, a change in the employee’s behaviour was observed. The individual began to complete work in his own time frame. He also began to show resentment toward the constant instruction from the supervising programmer.
The greater the pressure from the supervisor, the more the employee backed away and seemed to work less. On the other hand, he was indicating that there were projects that he wanted to add to his workload, which always seemed to be in conflict with the supervisor’s priorities.
Here we have an individual who was outgrowing his supervisor’s style of work. He wanted to become less dependent and take more initiative but had not developed enough confidence to take on projects that were important enough to put him at risk and challenge his skills.
At the same time, he was chafed by the constant overseeing of his work by his supervisor. The supervisor, focused as he was on tasks and results, had no awareness of this development and continued to insist that the individual conform to his style of direct supervision. It was later found that the employee was taking his work home to escape the constant overview. He was also becoming angry that he could not break from the patterns that were the preferred style of his supervisor.
As a solution, the supervisor learned how to back away and supervise from a results critical path instead of detailed analysis of the employee’s work. At the same time, the two had to learn how to inject creativity into the employee’s projects. A month after the intervention, the individual took responsibility for managing the maintenance of system code for the company, ensuring that the growth needs in the core code are completed when required.
So-called underperformance occurs at every level within a company, even in the most senior leadership roles. These blocks to performance are very often caused by a mismatch between the supervisor’s expectations and the employee’s stage of development. While there is a complex interaction between employees and supervisors, understanding the critical transition that occurs for every employee, within a wide range of circumstances, will better enable supervisors to draw out better levels of performance. The key factor is how authority and the employee’s reaction to it can best be managed to help the employee develop independence. Improved performance is an outcome when managers learn this single most important supervisory skill, which is adaptive leadership.
Alan Whittall is president of Calgary-based Bellwether Consulting Inc. and Leaders of Effective Organizations Inc. He may be reached at (403) 560-2981 or at [email protected].
Unfortunately, this hard-pressure results-oriented relationship between the supervisor and the employee tends to generate increasing levels of underperformance in the workplace.
When employees are labeled “underperformers,” what really occurs in many cases is a mismatch between the manager’s style of supervision and the employee’s level of dependence or independence. What managers have to understand is that each employee relates to authority differently. Some workers need close supervision while others thrive when working on their own. Many people make the transition from dependence on authority to self-reliance without help, but still others are stuck at specific stages and need some catalyst to move to the next level of independent performance.
The reality is that each employee can be effectively stimulated to perform better simply through the impact of the supervisor’s leadership.
Let’s review some actual situations. An employee with limited skills was assigned the front desk reception function at a small technical company. The individual quickly earned the label of a “non-performer” because she did not find work on her own. Many assignments were not completed and those that were, seemed to take forever, with results below expectations. She did manage the telephone reception really well, but that requirement was a limited portion of her job.
The only training she received was based on self-help modules that she had to learn on her own.
The problem here was with the supervisor. As a solution, the supervisor was given instructions on how to direct work during an assignment, help the individual decide what to do and how to do it, and review each assignment for effectiveness and improvement needed.
What this required, however, was a lot of work from the supervisor. Increased effort in the short term is often the case, but, unless organizations are perfect at matching individuals to the work, supervisory attention is what it takes. With support, the “non-performing” employee began to understand what makes each assignment work well. Her assignments were increasingly successful, earning her recognition from each of the people assigning her. Today, this employee initiates, creates and completes work at a level that surprises her supervisors.
A second example is an individual who, without much formal training, had learned to be a computer programmer over time. This employee was instructed and directed by a senior programmer who literally solved all problems. Recently, a change in the employee’s behaviour was observed. The individual began to complete work in his own time frame. He also began to show resentment toward the constant instruction from the supervising programmer.
The greater the pressure from the supervisor, the more the employee backed away and seemed to work less. On the other hand, he was indicating that there were projects that he wanted to add to his workload, which always seemed to be in conflict with the supervisor’s priorities.
Here we have an individual who was outgrowing his supervisor’s style of work. He wanted to become less dependent and take more initiative but had not developed enough confidence to take on projects that were important enough to put him at risk and challenge his skills.
At the same time, he was chafed by the constant overseeing of his work by his supervisor. The supervisor, focused as he was on tasks and results, had no awareness of this development and continued to insist that the individual conform to his style of direct supervision. It was later found that the employee was taking his work home to escape the constant overview. He was also becoming angry that he could not break from the patterns that were the preferred style of his supervisor.
As a solution, the supervisor learned how to back away and supervise from a results critical path instead of detailed analysis of the employee’s work. At the same time, the two had to learn how to inject creativity into the employee’s projects. A month after the intervention, the individual took responsibility for managing the maintenance of system code for the company, ensuring that the growth needs in the core code are completed when required.
So-called underperformance occurs at every level within a company, even in the most senior leadership roles. These blocks to performance are very often caused by a mismatch between the supervisor’s expectations and the employee’s stage of development. While there is a complex interaction between employees and supervisors, understanding the critical transition that occurs for every employee, within a wide range of circumstances, will better enable supervisors to draw out better levels of performance. The key factor is how authority and the employee’s reaction to it can best be managed to help the employee develop independence. Improved performance is an outcome when managers learn this single most important supervisory skill, which is adaptive leadership.
Alan Whittall is president of Calgary-based Bellwether Consulting Inc. and Leaders of Effective Organizations Inc. He may be reached at (403) 560-2981 or at [email protected].
