A company’s chain of command — whether it is rigidly enforced or gleefully flattened — often lies at the heart of how we understand the relationship with our line manager.
We can see it explicitly where different hierarchical levels of management are denoted and stuck to, and also implicitly where modern horizontal organisation structures nevertheless make it clear who is handing out the orders. Ultimately, one party is there to apportion out work and ensure standards are kept, and the other is there to undertake the task to the best of their ability.
The natural consequence of this is a certain level of deference towards our manager — a kind of necessary acceptance that what a line manager does is weighted by seniority and authority. You may very well have a happy relationship with a manager that allows for a great deal of pushing back and disagreement, but you will likely also have experienced an instance where it was clear a manager was unwilling to listen very hard to alternate ideas on how to do things.
It is hardly groundbreaking to say that pushing back against a manager when you perceive things are not as they should be can be incredibly difficult. A corporate structure might make it very clear that power flows solely in one direction and, even where this isn’t the case, an individual’s personality and management style might make it clear that their own position makes them disinclined to dissenting views.
The concern raised by this situation is that poor management performance can rapidly become entrenched and even seemingly encouraged where employees aren’t empowered to speak out. If you have, for example, a manager that screams and shouts to get things done, and the result is that tasks are completed in silent fear, the outward appearance is — unfortunately — that their approach has worked.
Worse still, a negative outcome might be characterised simply as poor execution rather than ineffective management, so that the cycle of bad management perpetually continues. Bluntly put, the worst of managers may only continue to get even worse if they have nobody around willing to point out their shortcomings.
This is not to say that an employee bears the responsibility for having a bad boss. Certainly, it is incumbent upon the manager themselves to have the self-awareness and drive to unceasingly improve and develop their skills. Any manager worthy of his or her position will, hopefully, recognise when their performance has fallen because of a poorly-chosen approach or a stress-inducing style.
Meanwhile, the organisation surely has an important role to play in ensuring that high, consistent standards of management are a rock-solid part of their operating model, and for taking action when things are clearly not running as they should be. Human resources should be mobilised and accessible to support employees struggling with poor management, and training opportunities should be available to augment manager skills.
Moreover, a poorly-performing manager’s own manager should, of course, be vigilant for signs that conditions are less than perfect.
That being said, it is important to remember that employee feedback and honest reviews are an important part of the learning process for managers and that the perspective of a direct report is especially telling. Every time a management survey or feedback review is issued, there might be a natural tendency to avoid the activity entirely, or to answer less candidly than you’d truly prefer to do.
This kind of reaction is understandable, but also ultimately rather self-defeating. You can’t possibly hope to affect negative management behaviour if you avoid any possible means for commenting upon it.
In the midst of a stressful or outright objectionable working environment, this might seem hopelessly optimistic, but staying silent is surely no less so. If the corporate culture at large is still one that you trust and believe in, it is better to utilise the available channels to open up a real conversation that generates a more positive experience for everyone.
The writer is CEO of Knowledge Group.
