Beware the Office Derailer

Some people have such severe personality flaws that they are unfit to be managers and end up causing tremendous damage when they are put into positions of authority.

Dr Iain McCormick, managing director of the Executive Coaching Centre, says there are several different types of bad managers or ‘derailers’, the worst of which is the office psychopath.  “These are people who are not just derailers but people who are really very noxious.  These people are typically very good at managing up and are very poor at managing down.  They are cold, manipulative and resourceful.  But the worst part is that they (may) fit in quite well in the modern workplace. ”

“In our fast-paced world sometimes these traits are seen as, or mistaken for, leadership. They (these psychopaths) can be competent but often are deeply insecure.  What they tend to do is to overcompensate for that insecurity by being bullying, pushy and manipulative.”

…. people who are actually working for an office psychopath are in big trouble.  “There is very little that staff can do.  I think it needs to be dealt with at a relatively high level and staying out of their way as best you can and finding something else or changing departments or something is generally the best thing that you can do.”

It is not possible to reason with them and you should never plead with them because they will only take advantage.  Logic is not of any value, McCormick says.

“If you’re going to exercise power against these kinds of people then you need to do it with care because they typically will want to get back at you… they are able to demoralise people, decrease productivity and thwart people’s careers.  They can function in the workplace for some time before being discovered.  “These people are superficially rather pleasant but when you confront them, then they turn into something completely different.

“Power and prestige and money and all the other things that draw most people into management draw these people in as well.”

But not every dysfunctional manager is a fully-fledged psychopath.   David George, organisational psychologist and director of Cerno, has identified six other less sinister flaws or derailers which regularly come up in his work which make people unsuitable to be managers.

The first one is ‘the impostor syndrome’. …unconfident and never feel good enough for their role.  They are self conscious and anxious and dismiss their achievements.  They dwell on decisions to find out what went wrong and don’t take necessary risks.

Then there is the person who sees everything in ‘black and white’.  They can’t see shades of grey and rely solely on logic.  They perceive everything as right or wrong and have disproportionately strong views on things.

The ‘better and faster’ derailer sees managers doing too much and pushing people too hard. These are the micromanagers who are never satisfied.  They are super efficient and depend a lot on themselves while demanding too much of others.  “They consistently try to do more.  They whip themselves and therefore others at top speed.  People don’t want to work for them.”  ‘Thank you’ is a difficult thing to say for these managers and they end up repelling staff.  “For the organisation it turns into a huge problem around not being able to achieve or get staff into the area or be able to deliver.  All the company can do is take that person out of that management role.”

One of the most common derailers in New Zealand is ‘avoiding conflict’.  The manager will go out of their way to avoid an uncomfortable situation. “The pain of actually confronting the issue is a lot more daunting for them than the pain of the continuing problem.”

The ‘pessimistic outlook’ derailer fear making mistakes to the point where it stifles innovation and creativity. They spend their time being constantly worried about things going wrong.

But the worst derailer is the ‘Mr Spock’ – a character in the 1960′s sci-fi show Star Trek. These managers are emotionally tone deaf and have no idea how their behaviour impacts on others.  “We regard it as the most fatal derailer.  They will never respond as needed to the person.  They will only respond to the issue.  Therefore workers do not feel valued, listened to, considered or even respected.”  The ‘Mr Spocks’ are not unkind people but are simply incapable of picking up social cues.  George says they are great at delivering the difficult messages but also end up causing a lot of damage.  “They often respond without a trace of social empathy.  They don’t waste time on social niceties.”

Often managers are typically promoted into management because they were good at the type of work they were doing at the company….  good managers view themselves as a work in progress and are always looking to learn and improve.  They acknowledge their own weaknesses and put in place strategies to address them.  They also get good people around them to compensate.  But managers with entrenched derailers in their personality who do nothing to address the issues will need to be removed from their positions.  “When you’re getting somebody who’s just refusing to cooperate or recognise that they have these flaws, it (employment laws) makes it very difficult to get rid of them.  “As a result, they (may) deal with it by tolerating the problem.”

By David Maida, The New Zealand Herald