Guidance to manage highly incompetent senior management employee

Dear Members,
I request you to read through the following case study and provide us your valuable suggestions.

One of the senior management personnel in X company is leading the company with below average leadership skills. This is leading to heavy attrition as employees are unable to work under such incompetent manager. This person has been in this position for a couple of years now but has not taken any initiative to develop his skills and personality which is also negatively affecting the development of company’s business.
Despite having so many negative attributes and close to none positive ones, not even up to the level of an executive, this person is not affected by any feedback and believes that he is perfect and others are wrong and gets too involved in micro management of the company instead of concentrating on sales growth and business goals.

This person, on the other hand, knows how to impress the board of directors in order to keep his position in the company. The majority of employees and managers in charge of the company's departments are dissatisfied with reporting to this person since, despite his senior management position, he has no understanding of the core functions of any department to advise them. There have also been numerous occasions where potential candidates have declined to join the organization after having interview with this individual because they recognized his incompetence during the interview and were unwilling to work under him.

I rely on your experience, expertise, and qualification to help me understand how to deal with such employees who are overconfident in themselves and don't see the ramifications of their incompetence at such a high level, which could have a significant negative influence on the company and business.

Dear Prathibha,

You have written several times that "this person is incompetent". However, this is an inference. What led you to draw this inference is not known. You have not provided sufficient evidence of his actions.

Ok. For the time being, we will take at face value whatever you have written. However, if the person is occupying a chair with the blessings of the BoD, then nothing can be done. If the senior management personnel is the cause of the employee attrition, then it is the fault of the owners of this company who allow him to continue.

By the way, no amount of feedback to this person will work. This is because nobody can convert an arrogant person into a humble person. A desire for change should come from within. No amount of external goading works. Therefore, if someone approaches and tells you that personal coaching or NLP techniques will work in this case, it will be a wild goose chase.

This reminds me of Nitishlok taught in the school. It is:

"जैसे चित्त नर छिद्र जैसे उदक सिंधु साधु न सुध्रे।
जैसे चित्त गज कुंभ जैसे तिल वन्द्य विनु नंद्य ||"

Meaning: One cannot change the nature of a person by giving him advice or telling him good things. Just as water, when heated, after some time, returns to its normal temperature.

सुझाव: यदि आपके द्वारा दिया गया अनुसरण यदि असफल रहता है, तो इसका मुख्य कारण आपके द्वारा देखा जाएगा। इसलिए हमें यह समझना चाहिए कि हमें क्या चाहिए और हमें इस बारे में कैसे प्राप्त करना चाहिए।

Thanks,

Dinesh Divekar

If this is a case study for a university course, then you need to provide answers to the questions and then ask for our opinions on your work.

We are not studying your course; YOU are. If we give you the answers, you will not learn anything, and you need to learn the skills if you are to work in HR.

So please prepare your answer to the questions, and then come back to us for a review of your work.

If you are struggling with the assignment, please talk to your professor or tutor and seek their guidance.

Dear Mr. Dinesh,

Thank you for your valuable inputs.

I would like to address your query on "why I have written several times that this person is incompetent."

A few instances to briefly explain:
1. This person holds a senior management position where department managers report to him. However, he seems to be clueless about the basic functions of any department and relies solely on the department managers to manage without his support.
2. When asked for expert advice, this person procrastinates and provides various excuses for not sharing his opinion from a management perspective.
3. He appears fearful of making decisions independently and consistently looks for reasons to pass the responsibility to others to avoid taking ownership.
4. Potential candidates shortlisted by department managers/HR managers often decline offers after the final interview with this person. They perceive limited career growth opportunities within a company led by such senior management personnel. Several senior position candidates have shared this feedback with the HR team, expressing their reservations about accepting offers or joining the company.

This individual lacks the attributes that employees typically admire in senior management personnel. The reasons mentioned above contribute to a highly negative work environment where employees feel they lack effective leadership and actively seek opportunities elsewhere.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Dear Mr. John,

Please note that this is not a case study for any course.

This is an actual situation in one of the reputed companies, and the senior HR personnel of that company is seeking support from experts and consultants to deal with this situation. I hold a good position in Human Resources in an MNC company, and many HR colleagues from different companies are using various HR forums to provide some sort of solution for this colleague's dilemma.

Hopefully, this clarifies your doubt.

From all the narrations given by you, and after carefully perusing the same, the inference drawn up by me is as follows:

The "highly incompetent senior management employee" is a trustworthy person to the owners or the Directors (who have major holdings in the company) - who prefer to engage such a person at the top of the hierarchy of any company (more so in private companies). Such persons need not be a mentor to the next lower level management personnel.

You can ask your colleague to come closer to the person. Once your colleague becomes in the good books of the senior management person, things will have a sea change.

It will be a futile exercise for your colleague to assess his leadership style or his professional competence.

This executive is able to convince/impress the board of directors, which implies that he must possess excellent communication skills and also have in-depth knowledge about upskilling all those working below him. Successfully dealing with the board of directors is not an easy task. It appears that the writer is biased against this executive.

To my mind, the officer had the capability to manage.

Prathibha-Srinivasaiah

Stop wasting your time with that organization and find a new job. If it is not possible, face the situation. There is nothing you can do if the director is supporting him.

Many companies have closed in the past due to such management.

Hi Pratibha,

Hope this will work for you!

Currently, you are accessing/discussing 2 parameters of this fellow: Intellectual Intelligence V/S Emotional Intelligence.

This person, who is mistreating every employee around him, excels in stakeholder & client management (which is a strong sign of Emotional Intelligence). Therefore, no amount of anger, frustration, or feedback will work for him.

It is evident that he lacks in Intellectual intelligence, which I personally believe is not currently necessary as he has already secured a good position in this company.

Solution: Create a whistleblower group involving all core members of your organization. Educate and encourage members to report any malpractices, incidents, or issues related to this individual anonymously. Any whistleblower will remain anonymous throughout the investigation until the issue is addressed. If you receive emails, you can use them as a basis for discussion with the core committee members to proceed further.

If you do not receive any emails regarding any wrongdoing in the organization, specifically by him, consider accepting his personality with a pinch of salt and change your perspective towards him if you do not plan to change jobs soon.

Alternatively, you can start exploring job options in the market and change jobs as soon as possible for your mental peace and sanity.

The entire post appears to be more of a disgruntled person than of a person of depth and wisdom. The fact that he is there by the choice of the management, sure enough management knows whom to keep where. The long list of judgmental statements only reflects and exposes it is more of a personal view than a concrete supported argument.

Is there a problem of you not adapting to the leadership because of personal grudges? It is difficult to imagine so many not so useful behaviors of a person sitting firm in that high office. Are you assuming that you are better than the management in assessing this person? Like someone has said in the replies, why not give the solution too. Personally, I feel there is a big frequency mismatch from your side. You are looking at so many negatives, not one positive from you.

Hi,

It's the situation that my whole team is dealing with, but the sad part is the HR head knows what's happening in the department but is not interested in taking any action against him.

That guy literally insults people in front of the group, blames his employees, makes fake complaints about his colleagues to the Head of HR.

More than 90% of his work is done by his team, and he doesn't even know how to make reports or present the data.

He sexually abuses female employees, and because of this, two female employees left the organization. Unfortunately, the Head of HR is aware of this abusive incident but has not taken any action.

One day the Manager took off his shoes and tried to hit a female employee. The female employee reported this incident to the Head of HR, but he has not done anything. The only reply we got from the Head of HR is "mere hath bandhe huai hai, I can't do anything."

Well, last we heard that management will not do anything, so all old employees are looking for new jobs.

Regards,

Dear member,

What you have written is horrible. However, within the ethical framework, there is no solution to handle this problem. To tide over the atrocious behavior of the senior, one has to break this framework of ethical conduct. But then the question is, who will do it?

Thanks,

Dinesh Divekar