It’s a source of amazement to me that leaders believe that their managers automatically head in the right direction, like geese that go south for the winter. Very smart leaders do this to some degree of awareness, without evidence to support continued hope.
I remember a client Bruce who led a medical technology company who started to repeat his complaints about one of his direct reports.
“I can’t believe that Jim hasn’t gotten his department to adopt the new reporting system that we discussed.”
“How long has that been underway?” I asked.
“About 3 months,” Bruce replied.
“When did you expect the new system to be in operation?”
“4-6 weeks after starting,” Bruce explained.
Red flags bust in the air like confetti in my imagination as he gave this answer.
The next time someone on your team is lagging behind with an initiative, ask different questions than you normally do. The cause is probably not that the manager is lazy, dumb, insubordinate, or broken. It might be due to mismatched expectations, lack of communications, insufficient resources, technology configurations, or some other aspect that CAN be addressed and managed with better leadership.
Stop thinking about why you couldn’t ask different questions and do it, so you can grow your business now.