You ever had a bad boss? Of course you have. We all have. You know what they say, “People don’t leave jobs, they leave bosses.” We know this instinctively, but the data also backs it up. Gallup research shows that over 50% of Americans have left a job because of a manager.

So what gives? Why are there so many bad managers?

Well, think about it. Where do managers come from? (Hint: it’s not the stork.)

Most of the time people become managers because of their past work performance. Maybe they were the most responsible or have been there the longest, you get the idea. Then they assume their new job consists of trading some grunt work for some “managerial” duties, whatever that means. Oh, and telling people what to do, of course.

News flash: that’s not the point.

And that’s why there are so many bad bosses. Managers don’t know what their primary role is, nor how to fulfill it. This leads to what we call wild west management. Managers may know their team’s basic goals, but each manager uses whatever tactics they’ve learned from the manager who went before them, both good and bad. And the cycle continues without any underlying ethos.

Management is assumed to be something that has to do with personality, something that can’t be taught. You either have it or you don’t. That’s not a strategy for success. That’s a crapshoot. And your company deserves better than that.

At Greyphin, we know that management is a science. To us, the goal is clear: Develop your team to deliver results.

And so is the path. There are specific, teachable, skills that your managers can use to draw the most out of their teams to achieve results you didn’t think possible. But I’ll have to save that for future posts.