Bad managers turn off young talent
A survey conducted by the Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM), and reported in the Sunday Times, reveals that 400,000 British workers between 18 and 24 feel their manager is holding them back.
Staggeringly only 14% of these young people felt they have a good relationship with their managers. Not surprisingly 28% of those who felt they had been managed badly didn’t want to become a manager themselves. A quarter of those surveyed said they would leave an organisation where they had been poorly managed. Paradoxically 61% said they expected to learn from their manager.
At the top of the list (86%) of desirable managerial attributes was ‘approachability’ followed closely by ‘letting staff get on with the job’ (66%).
So how come so many young people are not having their expectations met but continue to rely on their immediate superiors for guidance and learning? What does it take to be approachable? In essence these top two criteria are saying ‘Let me ask you for guidance and then let me get on and prove to you and me that I can do it’. But in order to even recognie this question, a manager must be approachable.
Approachability
To be approachable a manager will –
- Be interested in the development of his team both as team and as individuals
- Be confident in his own ability to coach effectively
- Recognise the strengths of the individual members of his team
- Trust in the ability of his team and allow space for creativity and practice
Its not rocket science so why do so many managers fall short?
Letting staff get on with the job
In our work with organisations we often find managers who are aware of the need to coach, train and let go but are being pressurised from above to ‘get the job done quickly’. This creates a conflict of values for all concerned and not surprisingly, stress, demotivation and even sickness follow. Disillusioned young managers leave the organisation which finds itself back at square 1 in the recruitment and training stakes with all the associated costs this brings.
We also work with organisations who attempt to solve the problem by selecting people for fast track management programmes. These programmes work well for the selected employees keeping them motivated and on track but what of the rest of the employees and what of the customers? Sometimes ‘fast track’ employees become so wrapped up in their own career paths that the customer gets forgotten – financial institutions are particularly good at this. We hear HR people refer to their ‘talent team’ – people who again have been selected for grooming and fast promotion. By definition does this mean the rest of the workforce is the ‘untalented team’?
A delegate on one of our recent personal success programmes had been feeling uncomfortable and frustrated for some time because he felt his manager was micro managing him. The manager had failed to notice the growing competence of our delegate and continued to supervise as if he were still a trainee. Our delegate felt that his manager didn’t trust him, the relationship became strained and he was about to leave his job. Managers so often forget the journey they took themselves to become a manager – learning, practicing, making mistakes and trying again. We coached our delegate to tell his manager how he was feeling and to let him know what his expectations of him were.
Confidence and Courage
Both of the above attributes require a healthy dose of both confidence and courage – confidence to know that young people can become confident, creative contributors and courage to let it happen.
Young people will stick around when they know their manager has their interests at heart, understands their needs and is prepared to help. As I say, its not rocket science.
Pat Hutchinson
_Co-author of Brilliant NLP
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