At least two articles have crossed my path this past week that identify the signs of a “bad” manager. First, the American Management Association reprinted an article entitled,  “Seven Signs You May Be a Bad Manager,” and then the Wall Street Journal recently published, “Five Signs You’re a Bad Boss.” Twelve indicators that you’re not making the grade, and I suspect we could come up with a whole lot more.

From the two articles listed, here is a quick summary of the evidences you may be a bad boss:

Your group is under-performing.
Your manager is turning up the heat.
Allies are distancing themselves from you.
You’re behaving like more of a jerk than usual.
Your decision-making is compromised.
Your personal relationships stink.
Your employees are miserable.

Most of your emails are one-word long.
You rarely talk to your employees face-to-face.
Your employees are out sick – a lot.
Your team’s working overtime, but still missing deadlines.
You yell.

I doubt you would find a lot of argument here. Some are self-evident (You’re behaving like a jerk. Check. You yell. Check. Your employees are miserable. Ouch.)  Others are not (One-word emails? Wouldn’t have thought of that one.)

However, from my perspective, there is one “classic” sign of ineffective management. It stems from the foundational role that managers play – that of being responsible for others. Occasionally, a manager is a stand-alone position; i.e., he or she has no employees, but the vast majority of the time a manager is responsible for a number of employees. In fact, management is defined as “the art and science of getting things done through other people.” In this context, I believe the classic sign of management ineffectiveness is when a manager never seems to grow, develop, or improve the performance of his or her employees.

I think you would agree that a company, a department, or a team has to be consistently improving its performance in order to compete in the marketplace. Clearly, capitalism is oriented around free-market competition. Companies that don’t grow, develop, and improve get left behind. Since a manager cannot do it all by himself, he must necessarily rely on “other people” to accomplish the tasks at hand. If those employees don’t develop their skills – if they don’t consistently develop and improve – the team will falter and ultimately fail.

The great manager, then, understand his or her role to be oriented about “people development.” Not managing results. Not solving problems. Not making decisions. Though these things are part of a manager’s responsibilities, people development is what separates the great manager from the pretenders. You don’t need to look any further than the playing field or the classroom to get my point. Great coaches make their players better. Great teachers make their students better. And, I believe great managers make their employees better.

From this perspective, it’s easy to look at the symptoms listed above and see the root cause. Managers who don’t focus on their employees – and their development – inevitably see their teams under-perform. They miss deadlines – despite the overtime. Unable to elicit the performance they need, those managers behave like jerks. Sometimes, they yell. They make their employees miserable. Employees start to miss more work. And on and on it goes.

As a manager, evaluate yourself as a “people developer.” What kind of grade would you receive?

Harold S. Geneen once said, “It is an immutable law in business that words are words, explanations are explanations, promises are promises but only performance is reality.” Immutable law? You bet. You’ve probably heard it this way: “Talk is cheap.” “Don’t tell me, show me.” “Money talks and baloney (or something similar) walks.”  Get the idea?

Immutable means “not subject to change.” What Geneen is saying is that performance is what counts in business. Not promises of performance. Not excuses for a lack of performance. It’s about performance. Period. Well….in a vacuum. After all, the best performers lose all of their value in an organization if they are a distraction, a problem, a drama queen, a poison pill, or a narcissist. Football fans will recognize these types of performers immediately – Randy Moss, Terrell Owens, like that.

The subject at hand, however, is performance. Results. What people do. And the primary challenge with performance is how to get the best of each of your employees AND create a team of people whose collective results exceeds their individual contributions. With that idea in mind, consider what former Avis CEO Robert Townsend said:

“One of the most important tasks of a manager is to eliminate his people’s excuses for failure.”

I don’t think Townsend was thinking that people always make excuses (which may, in fact, be a reality); rather, I think he was suggesting that managers bear substantial responsibilities in assuring high performance from employees. How? By eliminating the opportunity to fall back on common excuses as reasons for performance failures. Eliminate the source of the excuse and you eliminate the ability to use the excuse. Simple enough.

The Two Most Common Excuses

The good news is that there are two major excuses that can completely be eliminated from an employee’s vocabulary if a manager does his or her job well. If you think about it, the most common excuses are these: “I didn’t know.” “I didn’t know how.” Both of these are avoidable – completely avoidable – if you do your job well.

I didn’t know.
I didn’t know when it was due.
I didn’t know you wanted that.
I didn’t know how many.
I didn’t know who to ask.
I didn’t know that was more important.
I didn’t know the next step.

I didn’t know how.
I didn’t know how to proceed.
I didn’t know how to operate the equipment.
I didn’t know how to input the data.
I didn’t know how to complete the form.
I didn’t know how things work.

These are communication or training issues – items that are completely within your control. If the employee doesn’t know, whose fault is that? If he or she doesn’t know how, whose fault is that? In fact, throughout the day as a manager, you should add two simple ideas to your thought process: Do my people know? Do they know how?

The key is not to assume they know or know how. Make absolutely sure. How? First, communicate consistently and clearly. Once is never enough. Create clarity for each issue. Reinforce in-person and by email. Second, train and test. A good manager never assumes that an employee knows how. He or she trains the employee and then tests for competency. This is not insulting to employees – this is good management. Once you are sure they know how, you can rest assured they can do their jobs – without your direct and constant oversight (which is what you hired them for, I’m fairly certain). The alternative – to assume they know how – is to invite disaster.

Eliminating these excuses will dramatically improve employee performance. Now you know that, and now you know how to address it.