Ask Your Direct Reports Their Opinion and They May Hate You Less

Probably your direct reports don't hate you, Things are not that bad. It might be mild discontent. But, what could explain the fact that they don't seem to get it. If only they could stop driving you crazy and just do their job like they are supposed to. Is that the attitude you had when they first joined your team?

"Just do your job and don't drive me crazy and we will get along fine."

If this has been your general approach toward your employees, I urge you to consider pursuing a role as an individual contributor, not a leader. It will serve everyone better.

When an employee first joined your organization (or you took the reins of an existing team), you shared expectations, communication preferences, point of view, and boundaries. All with hopeful anticipation and valued camaraderie. "Welcome to the team," you likely said.

So what happened?

Over time, things got sloppy. Perhaps you got used to each other and replaced communication with assumption.

"She's been here long enough, she knows what I mean."

The layman's term for this is, 'lazy'. It can happen even when everything is humming along; costs contained, profits up, technology has magically fixed your problems, and you are getting home at a decent hour. The effective leader knows; the garden still has to be tended with a diligent and caring eye.

Although they seldom like to hear it, I frequently remind clients, "Your manager knows more than you." This has nothing to do with intelligence or common sense. It is about perspective. Your manager attends different meetings than you, receives different reports, is under different scrutiny, and is responsible for more. These are not things a leader should tell their direct reports because at best it comes across as a humble brag, at worst it is sanctimonious.

It is rare for your direct reports to see things from your vantage point. They view the world from their perspective, so it shouldn't come as a surprise to learn the reverse is also true. Your direct reports know more than you. They are closer to the end-user. They get the latest tactical information in real time, well before your excel spreadsheet turns from yellow to red. Every day they see successes and failures that you never do, or if you once did, you've long since forgotten.

When you stop communicating, collaborating, and soliciting opinions, you break an implicit compact. The point of a team is the realization of a strategic imperative. It is the recognition that the accomplishment of something important cannot be successful without the diversity of thought, experience, skill, and perspective. Without that you do not have a high-performing team, you have a group of people who barely tolerate each other, and there is no strategic benefit to that.

So, go ask your direct reports their opinion. Let them know ahead of time that you may or may not agree with or act on what they share, but you still want to hear their opinion because you value their perspective.

Written by

Karl Bimshas

leadership consultant who collaborates with busy executives to improve the working relationships with their direct reports and collegeuges to create high performing teams. He’s the author of “How to Stay When You Want to Quit;Strategies to get over yourself“.

Why it's Hard to be Effective on an Executive Team

Posted by Liane Davey

An executive asked me a really interesting question in a team session recently: “Which should be our first team?” What he was talking about was the divided loyalties of leading one team (your team of direct reports) and participating as a member of another team (the executive team).  It’s a great question, and gets at the crux of why it’s hard to be an executive.

The minute you choose a first team, you have thrown off the precarious balance you must perfect to be a great executive.

It’s a big ask. As an executive, it’s as though you have to be both the attorney and the juror. What do I mean?

Take a common scenario: making budget trade-offs.  Each function/business has submitted its plan; there isn’t enough money to do everything, so somebody is going to get less than they asked for. It happens all the time.

First, be the advocate:

Your first job is to be the best advocate that you can possibly be, fervently arguing on behalf of your part of the business. You need to have a brilliant strategy, with the risks mitigated, and a cogent and compelling presentation. Your job is to make the case for how your function can optimize the resources of the organization.

For example: "With the strategy I have outlined here, one dollar of investment in marketing will yield us $3.00 in revenue."  or "One dollar of investment in higher engagement will save us $2.00 in cost." or "One dollar of investment in this new product line will give us 6 months advantage on the competition."

And that’s where many executives stop.They plead their case and sit back down. "Ladies and Gentlemen, the Marketing department rests its case."  But you can’t stop there! You need to walk over, and sit yourself down in the jury box. 

Second, be the jury:

As soon as you have done the very best you can to make your case for your function or business line, you need to listen to the other cases as carefully and objectively as possible. You need to weigh them against your case and evaluate the relative merits of each. Your job now is to make the best decision for the organization. You are weighing the issue on behalf of the customers, shareholders, and employees.

And that’s not only hard because you might need to support investment in another department at the expense of investment in yours, but also because it’s not an apples to apples comparison. There’s no easy, obvious answer.  You’re trying to decide whether it’s more valuable to have $3.00 of incremental revenue or $2.00 less cost. Or worse, to figure out whether revenue in this year is more valuable than a 6 month lead on the competition for next year’s products.

But that’s why you get paid the big bucks. Because you are supposed to have the maturity and the smarts to be both a passionate advocate for your team and an objective arbiter of the best interest of the organization.  If you aren’t fulfilling both of these obligations, you shouldn’t be on an executive team.

(Of course, every once in a while the judge excuses the jury and makes the decision herself.  And in executive teams, unlike in the courtroom, that’s her prerogative.)

Are you doing your job as both the advocate and the juror?  Where do you find it especially difficult?