… or, some mistakes a leader should never make! In some corporations, there is a bunch of leaders(1) with very poor concepts of delegation, communication, team work, assertiveness and so on. Roughly speaking, a good leader is somebody succeeding to drive his team towards previously defined goals by using the less possible resources(2). For instance, a good football (soccer) coach is usually much more concerned to make his team scoring to win than playing beautiful and win. The ideal would be getting victorious scoring and playing beautiful but that is harder to achieve, isn’t it? Well, likewise, in managerial life, getting successful does not always correspond to be good. How about this?
What I have noticed in my last decades as a normal worker, regarding usual mistakes in Portuguese labor market, can be put in a list which will be more or less applicable worldwide. Some actual Portuguese companies, even being part of multinationals, suffer from all of them. Yet, they are profitable companies (at least, apparently), meaning, they sell a lot. …
Managers come from different walks of life, possess various characteristics, and have their own philosophies regarding how to manage a business and employees. In a broad sense, there are common mistakes made by managers at different levels and in various types of businesses.
- Not making right the transition from worker to manager – I am talking here about promotion and not exclusively the vertical one. No matter which type we are talking about, any change at this level must be explained to, analyzed and planned with the worker
- Failing to delegate – I have not found many managers being able to practice delegation or, at least, practicing it correctly. Typical Portuguese managers see delegation as “just do it and shut up”(4).
- Not setting goals with employees – Setting goals with employees should not mean “my friend, these are our goals and I am pretty sure you will achieve them in the name of a good team spirit towards success”
- Failing to communicate – Portuguese managers, generally speaking, do not communicate. They dictate instead. When they want to practice “show-off” for statistics handling or political achievements, they invent information means, more or less clumsy, they (over) spread them all over the company’s facilities but are not expecting much from there in what the happiness of the workers is concerned.
- Failing to learn – a Portuguese manager is always too busy to dedicate time for learning. Majority of managers I have met are always with that facial expression giving the idea that all work in the world has been dropped over them. And they are always talking on the cellular, cellphone sticked to one ear, head inclined down to approximately 45º…
- Resisting change – innovation is not a concern of our managers. They usually think “if I am selling my product, why should I change?”
- Not making time for employees/Not standing by employees – No way! Why should they? Can you imagine? If you make time for employees you are taking the risk of hearing what you do not want to hear! Big corporations overcome that by creating bullshit like “employee dialogue” or “record of dialogue” just for… the records!
- Not recognizing employee achievements – Why should they? Are employees not supposed to be happy just because they are employed and they are doing it for a superb employer? Besides, they always say “my friend, if you are not happy with us, you know the way out, don’t you?”
- Going for the “Quick Fix” over the “Lasting” solution – This one is very Portuguese typical. We really suck, don’t we? Portuguese are, by nature, the bigger “Quick Fix” religion followers.
- Taking it all too seriously – Let us say only that it is not recommendable, if you aim a “far and fast to go” success, to laugh too much! Just do it at the right level to please your boss. He will appreciate…
- Feeling people are lucky just to have a job – Yep, another very Portuguese typical attitude from managers. I believe this has much to do with the 50 years of Fascism under what Portugal lived until 1974 (Carnation Revolution). Today, as of then, a Portuguese citizen must be first eternally grateful for getting a job. To have a job, as seen by Portuguese managers, is a big part of the earnings a Portuguese worker will get. After that, why should salaries be high?
- Ignoring rumours – Rumours cannot be avoided when there is at least three human beings within a short space. Portuguese love rumours (gossip). We are not happy without them and we are unhappy with them. It is a tremendous mistake to not take rumours into consideration because they are a strong feature of our nature as human beings. Behind a rumour there is always a good lesson to be learned.
- Saving the praise for last – …when it happens! Positive strokes are fundamental for workers motivation and should be practiced on a milestone basis.
Apparently, making many or all of the previous mistakes would bring companies to a low performing level, therefore low yearly profits, but that is not necessarily true. In fact, slavery does not live supported on modern ways of human resources management, where actually several actual employers are also very weak. In fact, it happens very often that “HR management” is easily replaced by “HR control” which, in a society of narrowed labor market like the Portuguese, is easier and cheaper. Let us say that employers very often abuse from closed labor markets which is something very much tolerated by governments of 3rd world countries or those, like Portugal, still presenting a remaining 3rd worldism…
Bossism is very often taken, by mediocre bosses, as leadership. The authoritarian way of leading teams, either based on power by weapons or by a defective country economical situation, drives normally corporation managers to practice crass mistakes like “getting in like a lion, getting out like a lamb”. As a matter of fact, when this mistake happens it shows how little clever are managers making it because such a mistake is already the result of several other:
- little knowledge about the other´s side situation: managers think that workers are already between the sword and the wall(5) which gives managers motivation to step forward without properly measuring respective steps
- little knowledge about the impact of a failed attack: if workers succeed forcing back an attack from managers, workers will understand it as:
- my boss has no idea about what he wants to do, if he wants…
- my boss is not that much powerful
- little knowledge about what really strengths a leadership: a leader should never hesitate and, even though looking to be sometimes necessary, a withdraw has to be taken only as an action integrated in some strategy
Some people may ask: what is the alternative, when the attack fails? Should we keep troops in the battle field to be exterminated? Of course not. Let me say first that a manager should never take an action making it look like an attack. The answer for “what can be done when a management action fails?” will be given in a next post, some day, somewhere else…
This post is dedicated to Quinta da Malafaia, a place in Esposende Municipality, Portugal for entertainment, food and leisure, which is very much connoted to a management action, I have observed recently, looking like an attack. Going “In Like a Lion, Out Like a Lamb” is politically uncorrect and pretty much expensive, even if negative results are only medium/long term observed.
May the gods be with Portuguese workers….
- In fact, “leader” is a designation they do not deserve at all… ↩
- Cost reduction oriented. ↩
- Don’t take it too seriously because they are in fact mistakes but I am far from knowing if they are top ones! ↩
- “Just Do It” is a famous Nike’s marketing slogan which I do not recommend to be applied on teams leading. ↩
- Literal translation to English from Portuguese expression “entre a espada e a parede” which is similar to the English phrase “between the rock and the hard place”. ↩
Loading ...
Boa análise. Concordo plenamente. Seria uma homilía digna de se ouvir este texto.