Do You Know the Critical Issue Facing Management in Every Industry?

The critical issue facing management in every industry is the ability to promote successful managers who can have a positive impact on team members within the organization. Many managers are over-optimistic, task-oriented individuals who focus on the productivity of their workforce. They will statistically contemplate the effectiveness and efficiency of the strategies they impose to get a job done. Many managers thrive off of the positive feedback received from upper-management on just how well they are doing in accomplishing a task. Although these managers may be doing well in one aspect of their managerial duties, they are allowing their task-oriented nature to derail them from being a leader who positively motivates their team. The manager's inability to conduct a proper self-assessment that will balance their leadership directives is the cause of their own derailment.

Every leader should understand that the key factors that are necessary to be an effective manager of personnel are self-regulation, managerial skills, productivity, and self-awareness. The ability to regulate oneself is necessary when dealing with diverse attitudes and behaviors. When asked the type of leader one is willing to follow, most individuals voice their willingness to follow leaders who lead by example. Leaders who demonstrate the ability to practice what they preach and not just vocalize their demands, motivate their employees to perform at their best. These leaders must be able to demonstrate the ability to manage others and to show the capacity to manage themselves. Leaders who have insight into human behavior and motivation can encourage their employees to operate as a team to be productive while facilitating professional relationships that will cause the work environment to continue to flourish. This insight into handling a team causes managers to be effective leaders who successfully achieve in accomplishing their tasks and duties assigned by their superiors. Their self-awareness of their strengths and weaknesses, their skills, their expertise, and their job-performance enables them to be empowered to become effective managers as they continue to evolve; seeking opportunities to grow and become a better leader for themselves and their employees.

One of the key problems of over-optimistic managers is their inability to make a valid self-assessment of their management performance. Researchers studying the deficiencies of poor performers indicate that those who fail to recognize the shortcomings in their performance have discrepancies between their self-ratings and the ratings provided by their peers or supervisors. Task-oriented managers may view the success of their management skills based on their productivity or the productivity of the team; however, they have not considered how well they are meeting organizational goals of promoting an employee-oriented culture. They may have the managerial expertise to judge employee performance, yet, lack the knowledge necessary to competently produce the results they desire. Their performance limitations cause them to make management mistakes. These same restrictions distort their ability to have personal and professional insight into the limitations of their decisions and the efficiency or effectiveness of the choices of others.

Research demonstrates that managers who receive poor performance reviews lack self-insight on their performance on intellectual, technical, and social skills assessments. Any feedback that is contrary to their inflated assessment of their abilities causes a trigger in the protection of their ego to escape the negative feedback they receive. They will question the accuracy of the feedback and the relevance of the reports that are received. They will attempt to find the quickest way to refute the information and any interpretation made from the provided reports.

The inability to make valid self-assessments and assess the interpersonal and professional relations with others is an important component to emotional intelligence (EI). EI is an important personal and occupational component necessary to consider in the success of a manager. Research demonstrates that poor performers who have an over-inflated view of their performance are not in the position to recognize the depth of their management deficiencies, no matter how much they strive to provide accurate self-assessments. Employee surveys on management performance often demonstrate frustration because feedback interventions on management performance show no appreciable effect on management's motivation to change their behavior.

The defensiveness by these poor performance managers is a predictor of their willingness to seek self-improvement. Those managers who attempt to take multiple escape routes to avoid accepting negative feedback on their performance will continue to be in denial of their deficiencies and block self-improvement. This lack of self-awareness demonstrates their low emotional intelligence due to their inability to comprehend the need to consider the opinions of others. Those managers who are willing to consider the negative feedback as a means of self-improvement demonstrate a high level of emotional intelligence.

It is possible to stimulate the desire to increase emotional intelligence in poor performance managers. To encourage self-awareness and shut down any potential escape routes that can block self-improvement, the manager receives thought-provoking information on employee-management relations before the self-assessment. The manager should be encouraged to be sensitive or conscious of the opinions of others in the assessment of their managerial skills. The 'if-then' approach should be implemented before the self-assessment to establish the conditions for the outcome of the evaluation and to avoid any escape route for feedback that is received.

The critical factor to consider in developing efficient and effective managers is to know that poor performance managers are not able to reach their full potential on their own. They need support in developing those skills necessary to provide accurate self-assessments that will enhance their effectiveness as managers and decrease the risk of derailing their future success. All managers may benefit from receiving feedback that is contrary to their personal perception to mitigate their defensiveness and push them forward towards constructive personal and professional development.

To learn more on how to achieve this, contact us or you can obtain: Daring You To Be YOU!: Your Winning Attitude Promotes Your Potential.

Research: Sheldon,O.J., Dunning,D., Ames, D.R. (2014). Emotionally unskilled, unaware, and uninterested in learning more. Journal of Applied Psychology, 99:1, pg. 125-137.