Decoding the 4 struggling manager personas

HR managers, directors, or members of the C-suite team, when your people managers are struggling, they rarely raise their hands and ask for help. Instead, the warning signs show up in their daily habits and how their team operates.

Here are the four-manager persona’s that are a telltale sign that your manager needs some support:

The always in a meeting manager– All jobs are busy, and as you go higher up the ladder your time is always in demand. But notice when a manager is constantly back-to-back in meetings and suddenly doesn’t have time to make decisions, sign off work, or have that awkward cross-departmental conversation. Meeting rooms can provide a great hiding place. In practice, you'll see approvals sitting in their inbox for weeks, or other department heads coming to HR saying, "I just can't get a decision out of them." They use busyness as a shield to avoid the uncomfortable parts of leadership.

The doing everything manager - Being able to delegate effectively is a cornerstone of management, and if you don’t do it, it leads to a multitude of other problems. When someone isn’t letting go of the work their team should be doing, it’s usually because it's what they know and feel comfortable with; it’s their comfort zone. What you’ll notice is them personally building basic spreadsheets, tweaking routine reports, or running meetings that belong two levels down. You’ll hear them justify it with "it’s just faster if I do it myself," while their team members complain to HR that they aren't being developed.

The put them on a PIP manager – They’re often afraid of making mistakes and the work 'being wrong', so they micromanage the team so everything is done 'how they would do it'. For an HR team, the biggest red flag here is when this manager is constantly at your door asking how to put people on PIPs or asking "underperformance" questions but when you ask for documented feedback, they don't have much. You'll also spot high turnover in their group, exit interviews mentioning feeling stifled, and direct reports who feel they have to clear every basic stuff with their boss before sending it.

The never quite delivering manager– As a result of all of the above, they 'don’t have the time' to deliver the things that the business actually needs, like the department strategy or that restructure that’s badly needed. You’ll see key organisational milestones continuously pushed back, and every catch-up start with a long story about an unexpected "fire" they had to put out. When you try to discuss long-term planning or company-wide changes, their go-to response is always that their team "just doesn't have the capacity for this right now."

Any of these persona's sound familiar? I’m guessing they do. Want some help? Get in touch to find out how I can help take this problem off your HR to do list.