Author: Subir Palit
Marginalisation of smart employees at workplace, specially freshers (new joiners) with more knowledge capital and wisdom has been prevalent in the past and continues even today due to feelings of self-doubt and jealousy of those in current leadership positions as they are perceived as threats.
Knowingly or sometimes unknowingly such leaders allow their feeling of insecurity and current moods to become the climate of their organisation.
Systematically, these leaders in the organisation make it a point to appoint new employees and subordinates who are mediocre and are not the best options for the slots available. Their subordinates too follow the same pattern of hiring while forming their teams.
Within a short span mediocrity spreads all around impacting the overall performance and lead the enterprise to what can be termed as “Organisational Coma”.
Throughout the progression of one’s career, a talented manager will have a chance to lead employees with more technical skill and know-how than himself. In such situations, it’s important to accept that: the more talented your team members are, the better your team’s results will be, and the better you’ll look for it!
The mantra is to learn how to manage talent efficiently, to optimize one’s team strengths and lead the company to success. The real source of energy behind the company’s growth and success comes from its people. Beyond doubt today the knowledgeable and talented workforce is the ones greatest asset. By investing and retaining them actually one is investing in the success of the organisation.
On the other side, leadership gaps are all too common and is typically driven by one factor, insecurity. All leaders may have insecurities whether or not they admit it.
Many leaders don’t realize how deeply their personal insecurities impacts their managerial styles, and how habitual recurrent these behaviours can become if left unchecked. Not only this trait manifest as undesirable behaviour toward subordinate but they are often embarrassingly obvious to the rest of team.
Leaders who are honest with themselves and develop stronger self-awareness can make better decisions about what they need to change in order to improve.
“The golden advice for bosses and companies when it comes to hiring and building teams was shared by Jack Ma at world economic forum in Davos. Ma said, when managers hire people who are smarter than them, the company grows. Learning in business is an important part of growing in business whether it’s from one’s team or competitors, an important trait for entrepreneurs is to always be open to learning.”
