When Good Results are BAD for Business

by Kelly Riggs

Stop for just a moment and ask yourself a simple question:

What is the defining characteristic of an effective leader?

Think about it. What is that “one thing” that causes you to say about someone, “OK, that person is a leader.”

If there is such a thing, it would certainly be useful, wouldn’t it? You could just identify those individuals with that one characteristic and get them on the bus!

But, the problem with the question is that it produces a laundry list of responses. A leader is actually many things: confident, decisive, commanding, persuasive, responsive, charismatic, transparent, caring, intelligent, innovative, insightful, and so on. You’ve got to have an amalgamation of all these qualities in the right ratio to be successful. Finding success and getting to the top in your industry is what gets you on celebrity news, where the wider audience admires you for your qualities as well as what you have created.

So, you likely think this as an impossible or meaningless exercise. One thing? Really?

But, hang on a minute. Don’t stop reading.

It is my experience that there IS exactly one thing that usually gets someone branded as a leader.

Ready?

It is because that person gets things done. He or she produces results.

If fact, how incredibly rare is it to identify someone who fails to produce results as a “leader?”

Does it ever happen?

Stay with me here. This is VERY important for you to think about.

What this means is that the vast majority of managers are promoted to their current position of leadership because of their performance track record. As an employee, or as a supervisor or manager at a lower level, he/she has produced results. Think about your situation: when it comes time to pick a new manager in your company, what do you look for?

That’s right – results.

The top salesperson. The most efficient machinist. The fastest clerk. The best designer. The person every customer loves.

Right?

But that creates a predictable problem. If leaders are chosen primarily due to results – and they are – how those results are produced may be ignored.”

“But wait,” you say. “Leadership is about much more than performance, it’s also about motivating and developing employees. It’s about setting an example. It’s about ideas and the ability to execute those ideas.”

Wait. That last part – executing ideas – sounds like results.

“Well, sort of. But being a leader is about solving problems and making decisions.”

Uh huh. Results.

“But what about the employee part – engagement and development and all that?”

Good point. But are those things really factored into a decision to promote someone to a position of leadership? Do you REALLY evaluate those items prior to promotion? Or, do you promote the individual because of the results they produce, and then think about the other stuff after the fact??

The reality is that, in the final analysis, the vast majority of executives consider one thing when considering an individual for a management slot: RESULTS.

That’s it.

How do I know? Because I hear the comments made about those leaders who are leaving a mark on employees:

• “Hey, sometimes you have to crack a few eggs.”
• “Say what you want – he gets results.”
• “You don’t have to like her, but you have to respect her.”
• “Right now we need someone to whip that group into shape.”

So, we are back to the beginning.

We hire and promote leaders based on their ability to produce results. To get things done. To make things happen. And, truth be told, we are willing to overlook some of the….uh….issues that may accompany those results.

And we wonder why employee engagement is so poor. We wonder why people don’t reach their potential. We wonder why morale is terrible.

While results are important, employee engagement is also essential to keep everyone motivated and give their best. Engagement and motivation within a company can be neglected by a leader because they are getting all the necessary results in sales and marketing and that can lead to workers becoming lazy with time. So, to stay at the top of the game, an employer or leader should incorporate a few employee engagement techniques. For instance, they can organize different types of virtual events, take workers on workcations, give appreciation gifts, etc.

However, sometimes we just wonder what is wrong. We can’t quite put our finger on the “why,” but we know the organization could do so much more.

And, interestingly enough, you often wind up wondering what happened to those stellar results, because they just don’t seem to be happening on that team like you expected.

Perhaps it would be helpful to consider leadership from a completely different perspective. Instead of automatically defining leadership not as the “art and science of getting things done” (because that’s what gets people promoted), let’s look at it as the “art and science of getting things done through other people.”

That still incorporates the need to produce results, but from a FAR different perspective. It’s not specifically about results; it’s about influencing others to produce those results. Not compelling others. Or forcing others. Or driving others.

Influencing others in order to create results.

But how many people actually get promoted to management based on that criteria?

Worse, how many of your leaders have received the training they need to become that leader?

Ironic, isn’t it? You promote people because of results, but don’t train them to actually lead others to produce those results. Could that be because you expect they will be that kind of leader automatically?

How is it working out?