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Why Managers Don’t Deal With The Difficult Stuff
Unless you are one of those very unique and fortunate people, chances are you are going to have to deal with some difficult stuff from time to time as a manager.
Difficulties show up in a number of guises for managers, including:
- The employee who is not delivering what is expected in terms of performance
- The dissatisfied customer or client
- Employees who are in conflict with each other
- The team who are resisting change
- The loss of customers or clients
- The feeling of overload
While some might say that managers are rewarded well enough and so should be willing to deal with the difficult stuff, the reality is often very different.
So why do managers avoid dealing with the difficult stuff?
- They don’t want to be seen as the bad guy or gal
- They question whether they have the right
- They worry about the reaction they will have and whether they will be able to handle it
- They hope that the issue will somehow disappear if they ignore it
- They want an easy life
While on some level these reactions might seem reasonable they have a direct impact on:
- The performance of individuals
- The personal reputation of the manager
- The reputation of the team
- The reputation of the organisation
- The ability to recruit people
- Staff turnover and retention
- Customer satisfaction
- Personal and team productivity
- Bottom line results
While it might not always be easy to deal with the difficult stuff as a manager, the reality is that simply ignoring these issues is rarely a good long term strategy.
Duncan Brodie helps highly effective professionals become highly effective managers. He invites you to check out his management mastery e-course
About the Author Duncan Brodie
Since 2006 I’ve worked with in excess of 8,000 accountants and professionals in workshops, seminars and one to one helping them land their next jobs and become better leaders, presenters and business partners. Before that I spent 25 years in accountancy climbing the career ladder from Payments Clerk to FD. I’m a CIMA Fellow, Certified Professional Coach and Team Coach Facilitator.