04/11/2024

Avert Late Work by Trusting Your Gut and Being Vocal

Allowing underperforming subordinates to fail hurts the whole team

"You're in here every day! Why didn’t you know we weren’t on track?" This was the accusation a project head launched at a founder when she spoke to him about his insufficient performance. "There's too much going on in here for me to keep track!" the disgruntled employee continued, throwing the responsibility for his underperformance back at his boss.

Shortly after this exchange, the relationship collapsed completely and the founder had to let the employee go. But things hadn’t been smooth for a long time, as their conversation makes obvious.

It’s a real problem when a midlevel manager can’t keep track of their own work or team and uses these deficits as an excuse for poor work. It’s similarly dangerous for a subordinate to pretend or assume that their boss automatically recognizes everything that’s happening operationally. But these misperceptions are common among employees who mess up repeatedly without learning from their failures.

Please select this link to read the complete blog post from Liz Kislik.