Bad Leadership and Mismanagement

Posted by
Joni Rose
Nov 6, 2006

How does mismanagement happen? Do egos cloud judgement? Does power create some sort of blindness (the forest-for-the-trees variety)? If so, how can we prevent it from happening?

To help correct this, some companies are using 360 degree feedback. This type of performance review process, in theory, means that everyone who works under, beside and above the individual being reviewed has input into the evaluation. The trouble is that even though these reviews tend to be pricey in time and dollars, they are sometimes dismissed. The queens and kings go into denial and blame the negative feedback on “disgruntled” workers. Hello! They are disgruntled because no one seems to care or notice that the company is being run by nincompoops!

These low flying leaders find ways to miss being detected by radar. They are expert butt-kissers and find ways to manipulate people to their advantage. Some are corporate bullies and rule by creating fear preventing constructive and honest feedback from being obtained and acted on.

My suggestion to companies who are trying to weed out the bad leaders is to evaluate leaders on metrics that demonstrate effective leadership. A key metric is the amount of turnover of staff in their department. If you can, break it down into the percentages that are due to voluntary termination (quitting), involuntary termination (firing), medical leave (especially stress leaves) and transfers. Also look at departmental performance numbers, absenteeism rates and number of incidents involving the HR or legal departments for resolution. You can track the amount of severance dollars paid per department as another metric.

Keeping track of these numbers will help to evaluate the leaders more objectively.

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