The Wrong Stance Can Crush Your Team

Most leadership programs miss it. Leaders aren’t even aware of it. Yet, it’s powerful enough to separate poor or good teams from great ones. We’re talking about leader stance.

Managers tend to fall into one of two camps: those who believe employees are inherently incapable, untrustworthy, lazy and unmotivated, and those who believe employees are capable, trustworthy, self-motivated, and well intentioned. Leader stance determines the difference. We will label these a Controlling stance and a Trusting stance.

I often assess the stances of managers by presenting a test of their trust. In some cases, I suggest entrusting team members with a small budget to solve problems or satisfy customers. To say it stimulates discuss is an understatement. Some managers get emotional about it. They say, “Are you crazy? If we did that, our employees would drive us out of business!” Of course, their stance is that employees are incapable and untrustworthy—the Controlling stance. Other managers readily embrace the concept. They fully trust their employees and are confident that with a little direction, they will do the right things. They epitomize the Trusting stance.

Each time I do this, the results are about the same. Managers split about 50/50. What do you think I discover about the 50% of managers holding a Controlling stance? Inevitably, they have the most performance problems. Staff turnover higher. Employees show little commitment to the team or organization. The manager is usually frustrated and convinced that the reason his or her team’s performance is lower than others is because of some inherent environmental problem like workforce availability and demographics, local economic conditions, and competition.

The 50% of managers holding a Trusting stance not only perform better, but they attribute their success to their excellent employees. They train and develop team members and hold longer term views of employee tenure supported by lower employee turnover. They spend far less time at work managing team activity than their Controlling counterparts because they trust staff to work independently and do what’s best for the business.

Which leaders do you think most enjoy their jobs? Those that spend their time watching each employee’s every move trying to catch mistakes or those with confidence their teams can handle most any challenge they face? It’s not hard to see how, due to their stance, some leaders are their own worst enemies hurting their own as well as team performance.

So, test yourself and take stock of your own stance. Are you a Controller or a Truster? What kind of organization are you building with your stance? If you want to build a great team, consider what you will need to change about your stance and how you lead.

Kevin Herring is co-author of Practical Guide for Internal Consultants, and President of Ascent Management Consulting. Kevin can be contacted at kevinh@ascentmgt.com.

Ascent Management Consulting is found at www.ascentmgt.com and specializes in performance turnarounds, leadership coaching, and appraisal-less performance management.