Hot take: most ‘people problems’ are actually leadership avoidance problems.
I’ve worked at multiple fast-paced startups over the past decade and every people problem I ever encountered was usually due to a leader who avoided the responsibility “now.”
You’ve heard of that saying, “Easy now, hard later; Hard now, easy later.”
Avoiding the responsibility now makes you feel better but oftentimes, it’s a problem that’s growing through your avoidance. It could be for a number of reasons.
A leader knows that their direct report isn’t performing but they don’t want to have that frank discussion about expectations so they ignore it. Meanwhile, the team is making up where the poor performer is lacking. The leader loses credibility with the team and morale goes down. “Performance on this team isn’t taken seriously” is what the leader is indirectly saying.
The “mostly male” sales team is starting to grow a reputation at the company as a testosterone filled locker room. The male manager knows it’s a problem but sales are really humming and he doesn’t want to lose the momentum so he allows the behaviors to continue. Meanwhile, a few new female sales reps join the team but they quickly realize they don’t feel comfortable in the all-male “bullpen.” Soon enough, the females leave and the negative reputation of the company is all over Glassdoor, as an unwelcoming “boys club.”
A junior manager takes on their first leadership role but she doesn’t have any management experience, nor is there any budget for training. The HR leader figures she’ll “learn on the job” and the company saves a ton of money placing an inexperienced leader into the role. By the end of year, rumours run rampant that the manager manages through excessive micromanagement, and also has a tendency to hire extremely inexperienced team members to ensure she is the “smartest person in the room.”
Sure, there are a lot of other problems at companies like chasing revenue, fixing bugs, improving NPS scores, etc., but as a seasoned executive once said to me, “Christine, when you’re really junior, 80% of your time is spent on fixing issues and 20% is spent on people problems, but the more senior you become in your ranks, you invert that so that 20% of your time is spent on fixing issues and 80% of your time is spent on people problems.”
Easy now, hard later; Hard now, easy later.