Hack away bad managers or hire good ones first?
Any system which tolerates and sustains toxic managers is already dysfunctional. Any CEO (assuming he is not a jerk himself) wishing to re-align company culture must weed out toxic bosses as priority. That immediately signals detoxification of power as corporate policy to abusers and their hapless victims.
It warns power-poisoned managers that respect for human beings is a core-value of the organization that will not be transgressed. Such diseased bosses at all levels will be axed as top priority. Their abused staff will out them and the CEO will axe them.
Systematic removal of abusers of power will generate huge relief within the company, retain good employees and attract top talent from other organizations where such abuse is tolerated.
Fix the problem or forever lose good people
When competent staff at all all levels routinely leave an organization and the ones left behind with tenure are mediocre, it can be traced to a culture of abuse emanating from the top.
One can always pay over market rates to attract top talent. It is impossible to retain them if the power-abuse culture continues.
So if an organization wants an industry reputation for being an attractive place for high performers, it must shred its power-abusers first as a matter of policy.
Why axe jerks in management fast?
Staff will be able to re-focus on the real objectives of the organization rather than slavishly kiss-up to survive. They would not be distracted by whims, moods and arbitrary decisions of power-diseased managers.
Managers are an expensive resource. Because they are given power over people within hierarchies, their impact, for good or bad, is magnified. Power bestowed and not earned, can be taken away. An effective people-manager dervives his power from his team.
A manager with his head screwed on right and focused on end-results by coaching, leading and mentoring, will multiply positive energy. Apart from guiding his group, he would also defend them from jerk managers around or above them when necessary.
Conversely, a jerk manager will be wasting his and his subordinates' time in power-diseased behaviour. The collective mind of the disoriented group will not be on meeting meaningful objectives but on basic survival from abuse.
What about competent specialists behaving badly?
There are situations of particular expertise which is rare and vital. If such an expert is also a source of negativity to people around and below him in the organization, two avenues have to be pursued in tandem - search for a replacement and re-define his role to one of solo problem-solver.
The jerk has to be isolated from poisoning the many. A competent replacement has to be found in due time so that the offender can be donated to a rival company. He has to be jettisoned at some point. The sooner the better.
No company has the right to knowingly damage the psychological health of its staff by allowing power-diseased managers to continue.
360 feedback to check power abuse
Many organizations are dogmatic about their annual ritual of performance evaluation, yet shrink from implementing a 360 feedback review process in parallel!
That is the surest clue to a culture of abuse enshrined in a hierarchy of abusers at the top dishing it out to levels below.
As with all the studies of abuse in families, prisons, churches, cults and the military, it is the abused who become abusers in turn.
Until this cycle of toxic power-abuse is broken, it will not be possible to shape a healthy way to optimize performance in organizations.
ENDS
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