Screamer bosses, those that rant and rave and let their emotions define their management style, may have once been the scourge of the workplace, yet their tirades had one advantage: You always knew where you stood and how well you were (or were not) performing. Fortunately, the number of screamers seams to be decreasing.
However, the opposite style manager, one defined as being too nice by Wall Street Journal columnist Jared Sandberg (Feb. 26, 2008), can have more devestating affects on your organization. The result can be the creation of a dysfunctional department that has no confidence in their performance, no discipline to execute programs, and a whirlpool of scheming and backstabbing that could make politicians look tame.
Too-nice managers are those who are afraid to provide employees honest feedback on performance. Even though they may recognize poor performance, they say nothing, or at best skirt the issue. By avoiding unpleasant conversations, they doom the employee to nonimprovement. Worse yet, the employee will work into their annual review and get blind-sidded with a poor evaluation--and never see it coming.
People need feedback--even if it is too point out failures. No one comes to work wanting to fail or screw up. People want to succeed in their assigned tasks, and they actually welcome suggestions to help them achieve that goal. "You can't fix what you can't say is broken," said Sandberg.
From the annual review standpoint, there should never be any surprises at this formal event. If meaningful and constructive conversations are held throughout the year during regular one-on-one meetings, both employee and supervisor have a very well defined idea of performance.
Avoiding the constructive criticism portion of the management job takes one bad moment and extends it into a negative situation that can brew, ferment, and destroy a team or organization over a period of years.
Are you a too-nice manager? How many exist within your own organization? Good managers know that everyone needs occassional tweaks to performance. Don't avoid this basic need.