It’s Not Them. It’s You.

This recent Gallup article “How to Build Trust and Boost Productivity within Remote Teams” is so practical, true and helpful it brought tears to my eyes. If you are a manager or have one in your midst, read it and share it so that managers can be more successful and improve everyone’s lives they come in management contact with.

The exercise the author gives to managers for the purpose of assessing trust issues is simple and effective. The questions they provide to evaluate and improve team engagement and performance are right on target.

It’s Not the Team. It’s The Manager.

From the article: “Our findings in short: Your remote workers’ productivity depends on one role — the manager.”

Let me cull out and emphasize their point here in case it was lost in all that extra verbiage: It’s the manager. It’s the manager. It’s the manager. Who is it? It’s the manager.

It’s Not the Manager. It’s the Leadership.

Now, if your managers are not doing the right management stuff and don’t seem to respond with genuine interest when you suggest they should, it may not be entirely their fault. Yes, their actions are proven to be the most significant factor in team performance and engagement but the blame for failing to take those actions may not be theirs alone.

Is their management responsibility an expectation? Is it managed by their leaders? Is it measured? Are there consequences for not managing? If you answered “No” to one or more of these questions, then it’s no wonder your managers aren’t taking the time to manage: evidently it’s not a priority of the organization.

Leadership’s Role

Your organization’s leaders may know in their heart of hearts or brain of brains that good management makes a difference. But have they taken the time to define what they expect? What management success looks like? Which aspects of management will move the needle on strategy and execution so that vision can be achieved? It’s as easy to do as defining financial results. So if they haven’t done it, why not? One of my favorite diagnostics to use when goals or expectations aren’t being met are these four questions:

Performance Diagnostic

• Do they know what needs to be done? (Do they know that management expectations ought to be defined and managed)
• Do they know why it’s important? (Do they know the impact of defining and managing those expectations?)
• Do they know how to do it? (Do they know how to define the aspects of management that will move the organization?)
• Do they want to? (Do they want to define and manage those expectations?)

The answers to these questions help determine your course of action.

It’s Not the Leadership. It’s You.

As HR pros and people leaders, we have a responsibility to hold our fellow leaders, managers and professionals to the expectations related to organizational success. If your managers are not interested in managing, perhaps leaders need to be held accountable for those results and their obligation to improve them. If your leaders are interested but don’t know how, it’s our job to get them those resources. If neither your managers or leaders are interested in holding themselves accountable for management excellence and it’s important to you, perhaps you could use a hand before you burn out managing the inevitable and incessant fallout.

The uncommonly good leader cares deeply about the methods by which we build organizations through people. Be uncommonly good.