A building that isn’t maintained, that’s allowed to deteriorate, will eventually fall apart. It can be a gradual process that we can ignore at first, but eventually, something catastrophic occurs. Maybe the roof collapses after years of neglect, or a wall gives in due to a small crack left unattended. But the result of failing to care for, to manage, a building is inevitable.
The same is often true of leading others, of managing people.
Today’s management crisis is yesterday’s failure to manage.
When we run into a management crisis like needing to fire an employee, we tend to point the finger at all of the employee’s faults and shortcomings. But the reality is that often it was just the inevitable outcome from our own failure to manage in the small things along the way.
When we fail to coach, to give feedback, and help our employees grow, we’re allowing them to head towards an inevitable crisis. Maybe you inherited the crisis from a previous manager, but regardless, we need to consider whether our inaction, our failure to manage, to lead others, might have allowed a small, correctable issue to become a crisis.
As a leader, what can you do today to prevent tomorrow’s management crisis?
