A Kickresume survey of 1,002 workers, released this month, found 86% faked enthusiasm at work at least once in the past week. And of the people who dislike their jobs, only 9% have told their boss.
Nine percent! That’s not a morale problem. That’s having Houdini as manager. You know the type. Door closed, calendar full, and some generic motivational quote in the email signature — “We are not a team, we are a family,” or “my door is always open.” Manages by dashboard, never by walking the floor.
So the team does what teams do. They smile in the daily huddle, chip through their tasks on Monday.com, and quietly update their resumes on company time.
This new hands-off management style, increasingly popular with Gen Y and onward, hides under the guise of trusting your people. What it usually means is you have no idea what they’re dealing with.
I’ve seen my fair share of “by-the-book,” “my-way-or-the-highway,” “politically correct,” and “hands-off” team leaders who ran their teams to extinction.
And too often the go-to corporate fix is:
• An anonymous engagement survey
• A half-day with a motivational speaker
• A pizza lunch
• A very polite “thanks for the feedback”
Very generic. Very passive. Very blah!
PMI doesn’t leave leadership that vague. In the PMBOK framework, a team leader has to balance interpersonal, leadership, and management skills — and actually guide people through uncertainty, not hide from it. Thomas Juli’s Project Leadership Pyramid (PMI Learning Library) puts five principles in one system: build vision, nurture collaboration, promote performance, cultivate learning, and ensure results. Skip one block and the pyramid wobbles. PMI’s own leadership principle is just as blunt: leadership is not the same as authority, and good leaders adapt their style to the team in front of them — coach the new crew, get out of the way of the high performers.
Lou Gerstner kept a sign in his office that still applies: a desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world. Walking the floor isn’t nostalgia. It’s how you see the work before the dashboard lies to you.
Hate to break it to you, but a “leader” who doesn’t do the above is not a leader. They’re a glorified superintendent.
A true leader:
→ Asks the hard questions and offers a viable solution before the end of the day
→ Walks the floor and observes, every week, on every shift — not just the easy one
→ Does the job of each team member for an hour to find waste faster than any discrepancy report
→ Welcomes criticism. Zero bad news is not good news!
Bottom line, tell me: when did your manager last see the work, not the report about the work?
Sources: Kickresume survey https://www.kickresume.com/en/press/do-you-hate-your-job-survey/ ; PMI five principles https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/five-team-leadership-principles-project-success-6250 ; How I work https://danieldaemi.com/how-i-work/
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This piece first appeared as a post on LinkedIn.