The project took place in a manufacturing setting.  My charge was to do an organizational assessment and look for opportunities to increase the effectiveness of management on the production floor.  The company operated 24/7, requiring an overlap of supervisors covering the same responsibilities on different days and shifts.  While structural and procedural issues emerged in the assessment interviews, the plant superintendent noted that one of the supervisors was identified as “undermining the rest of the management team.”  

 

Interviews with leads, supervisors, and managers added more detail.  The supervisor was a very likable person but he didn’t back up other supervisors in enforcing decisions and performance standards.  Whenever employees had a complaint, he almost always sided with the employees rather than management.  His EQ Profile was quite revealing.  It was more consistent with someone working on the line rather than functioning as a supervisor.

 

Note the low Emotional Energy score.  Leaders need to have scores between 6 and 8 to have the power to act as leaders.  This supervisor’s personal presence can best be described as “laid back.”  He had some scores that might have predicted he would take to leadership.  For example, his Detail and Change scores would normally indicate that he might be a very creative and careful thinker, someone who might enjoy managing other people.  But his Emotional Energy just wasn’t sufficient to drive him to express those traits, at least in a leadership role.  He was promoted because of the quality of work that could be predicted by his Work, Detail, and Change scores.  He was very good at his trade but was not succeeding in managing others doing the same work he was so good at.

 

Like so many managers, he was promoted because he was so good at his trade.  But doing a good job does not always make a person suited for a supervision.  Had the EQ Profile been used in screening him for the position, I would have encouraged the Superintendent to keep looking.  Every score from Courage to Sociability predicts failure in leadership.

 

His Courage score is very low.  He was not challenge-oriented and always preferred to take the least risk possible.  This wasn’t much of a problem for this position because the job didn’t require high-risk decisions.  But his Direction score is entirely too low for a leader.  This assesses his capacity to look at problems, evaluate options, and make an independent decision.  Faced with an important decision, he would equivocate, seek out advice, and call the team together under the guise of “participation in decision-making.”  But in fact, the team was making his decisions for him.  When the decision involved interpreting and enforcing management directives, the decisions made were too often inconsistent with the Superintendent’s intentions.  In a contentious union environment, the lack of a coherence in the leadership team across the various shifts was beginning to create problems.

 

In addition, the cumulative impact of the last four scores predict failure in supervision.  Note the combination of low Assertive and extremely high Tolerance scores.  This supervisor was not at all comfortable being assertive.  He needed to score at least at 6 or above to have the assertiveness to direct a crew and hold them accountable for results.  Moreover, his Tolerance score is so high that he could be counted on to be patient, understanding, and forgiving…to a fault.  The man was “door mat,” incapable to standing up to staff and supporting management decisions.  His inability to manage effectively was made even more glaring because he managed the graveyard shift and the Superintendent was not able to provide the coaching that would make him a better supervisor.

 

In addition, his Considerate score suggested that he was a kind and considerate man.  This was paired with a high Sociable score.  Note the arrows going to the right, indicting high variability in the expression of this trait.  There would be times that being liked so important to him that he would find it difficult to say or do anything that make someone on his crew unhappy or dislike him in any way.  

 

In short, he was the kind of man you’d love to have as a neighbor but you wouldn’t want to depend on him as a leader.  When I met with him to review my interview findings and his EQ Profile, rather than being upset, he was relieved.  He wasn’t suited for a leadership role and he knew it.  He went on to describe how much much he missed doing work with his hands and using skills he’d worked years to master.  He said, “I feel like I’m at a banquet but I have to stand six feet away from the table and watch other people eat.”  He didn’t have to be asked to step down and go back into a worker’s role.  He asked for the change himself.

 

With coaching, could he have been brought up to speed?  As a coach, I have had much more success coaching people like “The Dictator” than doing a spinal transplant with people with profiles like “The Weak Supervisor.”   Some people are not suited to leadership, no matter how skilled they might be what they do.  It is a matter of character.  No amount of management training would have done the job.  Training would have provided him with tools but he would never be strong enough to use them.

The Weak Supervisor