Management communication obligations

The messenger

No one likes bad news, nor the bearers of it. The situation only becomes worse when those who bring it are those who formulated it. We’re not necessarily talking, here, about terminations, demotions, or the like - just straightforward things like direction, correction, critical guidance, or cautions and warnings.

Managers, of course, routinely find themselves in this situation, and many are intensely uncomfortable with it. There are a number of reasons for this. They don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. They want to be nice. They want to maintain good morale in the workplace. They want to be well thought of.

The result often is that the news is never delivered. In fact, you would be surprised how high up this problem can go. Sometimes, it even develops in the midst of a managerial career, and worsens as one rises.

But it has ruinous consequences, typically arising from and worsening precisely what the timid manager wishes to prevent. This occurs with respect both to the workplace and the manager.

For example, the individual junior concerned can be disoriented by lack of guidance or misled by misinterpreted silence from managers. This person’s coworkers can also be demoralized by what they may perceive as favoritism shown to a slacker or incompetent which simply places greater workloads on them and generally strains the workplace atmosphere.

As for the manager, workers can come to view him or her as lacking in the force and authority required to organize and administer the team’s work, diminishing the manager’s legitimacy in the workplace. Moreover, even the person being “spared” by this manager can come to resent what amounts to being set up for failure.

For example, a weak manager like this nevertheless often feels compelled to withhold a reward to an employee - such as a raise, prestigious assignment, or a promotion - for failure to perform on the job, even though that failure arises from the manager’s own negligence in not providing instruction and guidance. Worst of all is a negative evaluation on a formal personnel report. This sort of thing can really blind-side an employee who has never been corrected by a boss, and lead to everything from reduced productivity and turnover issues in a unit to lawsuits.

But managing people is at the heart of a manager’s work. There are numerous effective techniques for showing the right path to employees that, far from upsetting them, will encourage and motivate them, and reassure them that they are in good hands. Remember that this is part of taking care of your employees - even of, if you will, being meaningfully kind, yourself, as a person and to them as unique individuals.

If you want to feel good about yourself at work as a person, do your job as a manager. Formulate the message, and be the messenger.

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Today’s tip: Please stop over to Slow Leadership to see this terrific essay by Carmine Coyote about the remedy to false leadership and conformity.

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