You have been hired as a new manager of a small team. Problem is one or two team members are quite disruptive. You bring this up with higher authority, but the company can’t afford to lose these employees. The higher authority tells you, the manager to deal with this. You are manager after all.
What do you do?
First off, review the star performer’s expectations of the team and of the company as a whole. Star employees usually make the mistake of setting high bars for their teams and organizations. Because they work harder and perform better than their peers, they expect the organization to treat them differently, by granting them lots of recognition and reward. Sit down with the star and try to see how best to align his expectations with the team’s growth and milestones. With a more collaborative approach both managers and team members can ably pursue goals that allow the star’s own personal values to advance the collective good.
As for the star having favour with higher authority, a manager needs to build a more effective team model that emphasizes team hierarchy so that information and any other company needs would be transmitted through a chain of command. This approach however requires the higher authority to collaborate in a way that would see all information or requests by star employees pass through team leader first, and vice versa.
Another alternative is to review the manager’s leadership style. Most leaders fail in this regard, because they cannot balance the competence versus liability trade-off. As a leader, instead of asserting your dominance on the star employee, strive to foster an environment that facilitates trust, communication and the absorption of ideas.
With such an open approach, a manager is able to respond to Employee’s needs and where necessary fill the gaps.
