After being a strong individual contributor for over six years, the employee was excited and anxious
about being promoted to a first-time leader. This new leader understood the challenges and opportunities of the business including the fact that competition in the marketplace was increasing because of several new entrants with lower quality, lower priced products.
Within four months of the promotion to the new role, the new leader’s organization announced layoffs and budget cuts to become more competitive. Rumors swirled that many of the cuts were due to Wall Street pressure for profitability and went against the company’s stated business strategy of innovative product leadership.
Once settled in the new job, the new leader’s anxiety grew day after day as surrounding departments downsized and budgets were reduced throughout the company by at least 15%. But so far so good, the new leader hadn’t received “the call” yet. After six months, it appeared the new leader’s new product development department was safe from the cuts being felt by other departments. Unfortunately, while the new leader was worrying about layoffs and potential budget cuts, the department’s goals and objectives were suffering in two areas; the number of new products launched to market, and overall new product quality. The new product development department was supposed to launch at least six new products but had only launched three. Of the new products launched, customer feedback was disappointing and product quality scored at an average of 78 against a minimum goal of an 85 rating.
During the new leader’s most recent “one-on-one” performance conversation, the new leader’s manager asked the new leader how things were going with the team and asked about the underachievement in terms of the key objectives and key performance indicators.
During the conversation, the new leader focused on things like the market being slow, the internal supply chain being slow and not manufacturing new products fast enough, the lack of capacity, and the lack of resources after the downsizing and budget cuts.
The entire performance discussion focused on everything except what was really happening with the new leader’s team, their skills, and their abilities to achieve their goals and objectives. The new leader’s boss listened, agreed with the excuses, and asked the new leader to try harder.
Unfortunately, this story – and others just like it - isn’t going to have a good ending because the new leader wasn’t being authentic and wasn’t addressing the real issues. The new leader’s team wasn’t very good. They were coming into work late, leaving early, making basic mistakes over and over again, and simply not taking any pride or ownership for their achievements. But instead of acting, the new leader hid the deficiencies of the team because the new leader felt obligated to protect the team and not do anything that could jeopardize the number of resources the new leader had to manage.
In other words, the new leader was concerned that if there were terminations for lack of performance, the jobs wouldn’t be filled because of the budget situation. The new leader also enjoyed being the “boss” and building a small kingdom while other departments were shrinking was becoming a source of internal political power. So, the new leader made the conscious decision of putting up with poor performance instead of losing the positions.
The reasons why a new leader would sacrifice performance for resources aren’t that hard to understand; but the impacts to the overall business could be devastating as this is a common scenario in many companies.
If you are a new leader and are tempted by protecting employees who aren’t performing because you don’t think they will be replaced, ask yourself the following questions:
- How long will it be before my performance and job comes into question?
- If my reputation becomes tarnished, will that impact my ability to get promoted in the future?
- Am I setting a bad precedent for the future leaders on my team who are performing?
Business leadership is equal to the execution of your business strategy through people. If you find yourself in this position, you must have the leadership courage – as hard as it may be – to take the necessary actions. You are doing the right thing for the long-term of your company and your career.
