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Our bosses' sad lack of leadership
(Daily Mail (London) (KRT) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Aug. 24--Managers who lead by example are vital for keeping staff satisfied in difficult times, yet most fail to do this.
According to the Happiness at Work Index run by recruitment consultancy Badenoch & Clark, 61 per cent of workers said the most valuable quality in a manager was the ability to lead by example, but only a third said this happened.
Employees also wanted managers to be honest about how the business was performing while 39 per cent felt their line managers should be representing them more effectively to senior management.
Neil Wilson, managing director of Badenoch & Clark, says: "Managers are feeling the pressure as much as everyone else, but they have an important role to play. Though influential, they are clearly struggling in some industries."
Managers in banking and finance fared worst in the survey, with only 28 per cent seen to be leading from the front. Those in law firms fared best, meeting more than 50 per cent of employees" expectations.
Marketing and public relations consultant Andrew Bentham has experienced the best and the worst of leadership styles in the past 12 months.
Andrew, 28, from Notting Hill, west London, says: "Your manager should set an example and inspire you, but in my last job in a recruitment firm, when business started to get difficult, the managers took it out on everyone else."
Andrew says the management style in his present job with Mandate Communication in central London is very different. "There is uncertainty about the future, but the managers are honest about business performance while ensuring that stress is not passed to the team, he says.
Gareth English of international business psychology consultancy OPP in Oxford has sympathy for managers. "Employees could ask themselves whether they are expecting too much from their manager, especially when times are tough," he says.
"But providing skills training to help managers deal with the challenges of a downturn is critical because when the economy starts to recover, people may decide to look for a job elsewhere."
To see more of the Financial Mail on Sunday, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.financialmail.co.uk.
Copyright (c) 2008, Financial Mail on Sunday, London
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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