For employers, a good manager is the equivalent of gold and many times more. A good manager empowers their subordinates, co-managers, and often their superiors. A good manager is the key to a cohesive and strong team, which results in better service, higher productivity, and lower costs in all areas.
An incompetent manager on the other hand, greatly increases all costs for the employer, both due to the manager's mistakes and avoidance of necessary decision-making, reduced staff productivity, increased absenteeism and sickness among staff, dissatisfaction and increased demands from customers, as well as due to higher staff turnover.
Manifestation of managerial incompetence
If a manager is incompetent at their work, there are various manifestations and most of them are visible with the manager themselves, in the productivity and service of the staff, as well as from the customers. Examples of these manifestations include:
- The manager shows aversion to any kind of decision making. Staff will find it difficult to carry out necessary tasks, dissatisfaction will begin to manifest itself among staff as well as customers who receive poor answers or no service due to the manager's indecisiveness and the staff's difficulty in doing their jobs properly.
- The manager will avoid communication with subordinates; emails and phone calls are poorly answered. Staff will find it difficult to do their jobs, and to make sure that essential tasks do not stop due to manager incompetence, staff will find ways to bypass established work processes that involve manager intervention, or manager-related tasks are ignored.
- The manager begins to favor sycophants over other staff. These are the first steps to a negative workplace culture, where the staff learns that good work habits and productivity are not the key to success, but rather to celebrate incompetence. For employees who find it difficult to demonstrate sycophantic behavior, learned helplessness and reduced productivity begin to occur.
- If a meeting is held with the incompetent manager, that individual will take over the meeting, and only their own words, thoughts, and decisions are taken into account in meetings. Topics not chosen by the incompetent manager are ignored. Employees feel that their opinions are being ignored and important projects are being neglected. This affects the morale of the staff, and hampers the employer in general as the incompetent manager ignores the voices of experts as well as all other staff.
- If difficult decisions have to be made, the incompetent manager will shirk responsibility and put it on other staff. Staff are then put in the position of having to answer for decisions that they neither control nor can influence. This increases employee dissatisfaction, which in turn reduces their productivity, level of service decreases, and turn over spikes.
- The manager will avoid difficult conversations, or respond to staff with gibberish or empty long-winded sentences that at best accomplish nothing, but at worst confuse staff. If the manager is required to answer, they often give false promises, which increases the dissatisfaction of staff and customers.
- General dissatisfaction among employees will emerge. The employees will show less productivity, service levels will drop, followed by increased costs to the employer and customer dissatisfaction.
- Employees start looking around for better options, employee turnover increases with the associated costs.
- Absenteeism and sickness among employees will increase; employees will begin to avoid the workplace and situations which include interactions with the incompetent manager.
The higher the position of the manager, the more serious the consequences of that manager's incompetence. Incompetent managers tend to surround themselves with sycophants, who in turn teach other employees that going along with the incompetence pays off in the long run. If employees try to protest or confront the incompetent manager, their voices are silenced through dismissal, job transfers or threats of such, as well as financial violence or other types of abuse by the incompetent manager.
The intervention of the human resources department with general managers
A manager's incompetence can be due to lack of education, knowledge, experience, or simply because the manager does not fit with the team that person was put in charge of. The incompetence can also be a multifaceted problem, arising from some or all of the aforementioned factors.
If a problem arises with an employer due to the incompetence of a manager, the human resource department has various instruments and tools to intervene in the matter and try to support the manager, and the relevant other employees, in the best possible way. Sometimes it is possible to accommodate the manager by increasing the their education level and/or knowledge, giving the manager access to further experience to strengthen the skills they lack, or simply give the manager guidance on how to manage different teams.
However, it must be kept in mind that no human resource department's equipment and tools can strengthen a manager who is resist HR's assistance, or refuses to receive help with their work, or who does not see the need to change their management styles. Opposition of a manager who has shown incompetence at work to positively work on themselves and their incompetence can create great difficulties for the employer, unless the manager in question is terminated from their position.
When the HR department notices problems due to an incompetent manager who cannot be promoted or removed from the job, the first steps are to consider the employees closest to the manager. In this situation, strong middle managers are the backbone of the employer, and act as a shield between the incompetent manager and the team that the middle manager is in charge of. HR should focus on supporting the middle managers as much as possible, giving their positions more responsibilities regarding their subordinates and independence in their work, and thus cut off possible contact points that the incompetent manager could have.
If the incompetent manager is the employer's top manager, termination is often impossible, HR is powerless to intervene, and other middle management is often overwhelmed by their own manager's incompetence.
The higher the position of the incompetent manager, the more difficult it is to protect the entire staff from possible problems and therefore it is important to remember that regardless of how strong the middle managers are, the consequences of the incompetent manager will always trickle down to the entire staff . At this point, it is important to strengthen the entire staff of the employer, as a joint effort of the entire work group is necessary to deal with the problem.
The incompetence of senior management and the difficulty of intervening
The higher the position of the incompetent manager, the more influence the manager has, and it is therefore often difficult to completely cut off all contact with general staff. General staff will perceive the difficulties of their next managers in doing their job, irritation can arise in middle managers which can affect their subordinates directly, and there are e.g. few employers in Iceland that are large enough to be able to completely isolate an incompetent senior manager from other staff.
It is more difficult for the HR department to support general staff than middle managers, simply because most employees are categorized as general staff and employees in the HR department are a finite source. It is therefore good for general staff to keep the following points in mind:
- When an employer's top manager is incompetent, the HR department is often unable to intervene unless the employer is set up in such a way that the employer's top manager has to answer to some higher power (e.g. a board of directors that operates outside of the employer).
- Although such a board monitors the work of the top manager, in general the board does not intervene in the work of managers unless there is gross misconduct or a scandal, that is if the aforementioned circumstances have found their way into the media and are affecting the employer's operating basis.
- The HR Department cannot request intervention from the board unless it has sufficient data to demonstrate that it is deemed necessary for the board to intervene in the situation. It is therefore often up to the staff themselves to call for the board's intervention.
What can general staff do to bring an incompetent manager to the attention of the board?
Individual cases are not under a board's purview, as an employer should be able to deal with day-to-day matters internally, but a collection of problems that arise due to an incompetent manager are something that a board must intervene with as it's hurting their bottom line.
Solidarity between staff members is key here, and it is important that employees unite and use every opportunity to advance their views on the manager's incompetence.
- If the HR department receives formal complaints about an incompetent manager, the HR department must forward the complaint to the appropriate person so that it can be processed as best as possible. It is important here that employees try to act as a group rather than as individuals, as the group has both a stronger voice, as well does the group provide protection for individuals against possible retaliation.
- If the HR department does not enjoy the necessary trust of the employees in order to follow up on the issues of an incompetent manager, it is important that the employees not only make a formal complaint, but to do so in writing and have a verifiable receipt from the HR department as proof of having filed a complaint. If there is any doubt that a complaint is being sent down the right channels by the HR department, employees can submit the complaint themselves to the board with receipt of HR's reception of the matter.
- Employers have many communication channels that employees can use to make anonymous tips. It is possible to request that an anonymous tip about a failure in the work of an incompetent manager be sent to the HR department, but it should be noted that the HR department is often limited with recording a case if no formal complaint is received. Employers also often have surveys or idea boxes where staff can forward complaints anonymously.
- If the HR department is not able to intervene, employees can bypass HR and submit their own complaints directly to the board. Individuals can go directly to the board and request that their comments against the manager be recorded, but it is good to keep in mind that strength lies in numbers and it is always a strong game if departments or groups of employees get together and request intervention from the board regarding an incompetent manager (for an example of this from the icelandic job market, please see these newsclippings, in Icelandic, here and here).
In conclusion
There are many things to consider when an employer finds themselves stuck in the grip of an incompetent manager. In a perfect world, we all strive to provide excellent service and productivity at work, regardless of job title. It is therefore painful for general employees who want to do well in their work to see managers get ahead with negative work practices that hurt the entire staff. It is even more painful when the incompetent manager keeps getting away with damaging work practices, and a negative workplace culture and difficult work ethic begin to characterize the daily work of the general staff.
It is important for the HR department to know the signs of incompetent managers, and to be on their toes towards all employees so that it is possible to intervene when necessary. But the HR department is a finite resource, and therefore it is important that the general staff report any kind of misconduct at work to the HR department directly so it is easier for the HR department to find any harmful behavior and intervene.
But when the HR department has used all their instruments and tools to deal the incompetent manager and there are no changes, it is important that general employees know that a job title is not everything. The employer isn't a single manager, but the entire workforce, and through the power of numbers, employees can have enormous positive impact where individuals are powerless.
Let's stand together for a positive workplace culture, good morale, and a constructive work environment.
This article first appeared as a review on visir.is 06.02.2023 [link]. Interview with Bítið 08.02.2023 [link]. Interview with Dagmál 07.03.2023 [link, link, link].