The dominant management tool used in modern business to improve the performance of staff members is the performance evaluation. We’ve had to frequently change the names and acronyms used to identify this tool because the old names soon elicit a terrified “fight or flight” response in the evaluations’ recipients.
Writing a performance evaluation is a difficult and unpleasant task, but receiving one is even worse. No matter how many positive traits and glowing accomplishments are recorded in the performance evaluation, each of us who receive an evaluation fixate on the negatives. Ours is a primal response to the threat inherent in an official document of our shortcomings issued by our management. Still, I understand and accept the need for performance evaluations. All of us need to recognize that these documents, in whatever form and by whatever name, will be with us for a long time. Modern management must have this documentation.
Good leadership sees beyond the performance evaluation document, even to the point of ignoring it. (I now have the full attention of any HR manager reading this blog!) There’s an important distinction between leadership and management as it relates to employee performance that is the root of this rebelliousness by good leaders—a manager is responsible for developing a human resource according to the standard performance model for that resource, while a leader is fulfilling a vision. A manager is obligated to identify and shore up weaknesses, while a leader finds and deploys strengths. If written communication is an important part of a job description, the manager must ensure that an employee’s deficient writing skills are improved, while the leader simply chooses redirects any memo writing to a team member with good writing skills.
There is a wonderful illustration of this principle in one of my favorite leadership books: Lincoln on Leadership: Executive Strategies for Tough Times, written by Donald T. Phillips. It seems Lincoln’s army generals at the start of the Civil War were highly adept at navigating the Washington, D.C. social and political scene, but they were weak at war strategy and in directing military actions. Their talents had served them well in maintaining a peacetime army, but contributed to the sequence of stunning defeats of the Union forces at the beginning of the Civil War. Lincoln cleaned house and replaced them with generals who were an embarrassment in Washington, D.C., but whose skills in the field reversed the tide of the war and defeated the Confederate army.
So, when we function as leaders, we should be smart enough to focus on the strengths in our teams.
However… when we function as managers, we owe it to the people we manage to help them develop a balanced set of skills and prepare themselves for long-term opportunities. Yes, we have a moral duty to them to keep writing those dreaded performance evaluations.