Ruthless managers take their toll

Gene Mage

This week we examine the sixth “Elephant in the office”, the ruthless manager. Visit www.makingitwork.com if you would like to catch up on the whole series.

One of the sad byproducts of the industrial revolution was the inevitable comparison between men and machines. Now, in the information age, we find the worth of a person judged against against the computing power of a microchip.

Our nomenclature does not help. Individuals with all their gifts and talents are called human “resources” or “assets”. Experience, insight, and wisdom have now become “intellectual capital”.

While people have always been the variable cost of choice for cost-cutting managers, de-humanizing the worker has made the process even more cold and mathematical.

I am reminded of the clinical precision with which the Nazis exterminated those whom they deemed inferior by virtue of birth or affiliation. To the S.S., prisoners were not human beings being murdered, just “disposable labor units” for building rockets or making tires. As long as prisoners remained productive, they were logged into neat ledger books, orderly columns of numbers to be counted and recounted by some fastidious clerk. When the prisoners were no longer productive the were murdered and discarded.

And then I walk into a modern business and find that there are places where you get ahead through ruthlessness. Leaders in these toxic jungles pit managers one against the other to see who will prevail. They see who can undermine and destroy the career of the other, who has the “tough minded pragmatism” to get things done around here. I’ve seen it, and it is not pretty. In some organizations if you haven’t fired several people recently others start to worry that you are getting soft.

Now please do not misunderstand me. Managers cannot, and must not, allow chronically non-performing individuals to stay in their positions. But managers cannot, and must not, abuse employees through inappropriate termination or treatment in the workplace, just because they see this as the only way to get results.

If a manager is unskilled, ill-prepared or unsuited for his position, he may conclude that there is no other way to get results than to act without mercy towards others. So when he feels threatened by a subordinate, he begins looking for a way to make that subordinate go away. When he feels insecure because of the success of a peer, he does what he can to undermine the other person. When results fall shorts, he starts looking for someone to blame.

As leaders, we have a responsibility to create a work environment where people feel safe to work, safe to speak up, and safe to bring their whole selves into the office every day. Ruthless managers cannot coexist with a truly positive, open work environment. So as leaders we have a responsibility to hold our managers accountable, and demonstrate through our actions that ruthlessness will not be rewarded with promotion, even if the manager in question “gets results”.

Usually the ruthless manager does not really “get results”, but rather “delivers the numbers”. The ruthless managers delivers the numbers, but at a terrible cost. The ruthless manager mortgages the future when he carelessly tosses decades of hard earned employee loyalty and trust down the drain to “hit the number”. The ruthless manager drives overall costs upwards through the expense of replacing good people who exercise their choice to work elsewhere. The ruthless manager dissipates brand equity built in the marketplace as he sullies the reputation of the firm.

Are you tempted to act ruthlessly because you “just have to make some hard choices?” Are you inclined to promote those who do not let the humanity of the workforce get in the way of business results? If so, you are one of the saddest creatures on earth. Because in denying the humanity of others, you forfeit the humanity that was yours. You become just one more soul-less empty suit. You become just one more climber, fighting and clawing your way to the top, to be forgotten after the retirement party ends.

Syndicated columnist Gene C. Mage is author of the book Managing for High Performance. To contact Gene, visit www.makingitwork.com.

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