Leadership IQ Study: Nobody Likes Low Performers
WASHINGTON, D.C. – June 20, 2006 -- According
to a new study by Leadership IQ, 87% of employees say that working
with a low performer has made them want to change jobs.
93% of employees say that working with a low performer has decreased
their productivity. But only 14% of senior executives say
their company effectively manages low performers. And only
17% of middle managers say they feel comfortable improving or
removing low performers.
Leadership IQ, a leadership training and research
company, compiled these results after conducting employee surveys
with 70,305 employees, managers and executives from 116 public,
private, business and healthcare organizations. Leadership
IQ’s employee survey asks 45 questions about such workforce
issues as employee loyalty, corporate strategy, and leadership
effectiveness.
What makes someone a low performer? In follow-up
questionnaires, 6,241 employees were asked to list five characteristics
that defined a low performer. The top five responses were
as follows, in order of importance:
- Negative attitude
- Stirs-up trouble
- Blames others
- Lacks initiative
- Incompetence
“Low performers can feel like emotional
vampires, sucking the energy out of everyone around them,”
explains Mark Murphy, CEO of Leadership IQ. “It’s
one of the great management misnomers that low performers’
major problem is technical incompetence. While some lack
skills, most low performers are so identified because of a difficult
attitude.”
“While it may strike some leaders as paradoxical,
leaders may have to remove their worst employees in order to keep
their best employees,” he notes. “When the overwhelming
majority of employees say that working with low performers makes
them want to quit their jobs, leaders should accept this as a
‘wake-up call’ and tackle this issue immediately.
Because if low performers start dictating the company’s
culture, productivity, quality and service will all decline precipitously,
and high performers will avoid your company like the plague.”
“Given that only 14% of senior executives
think their company addresses this issue effectively, there’s
tremendous competitive advantage for companies that can turn this
around” adds Murphy. “But companies need to
begin by investing much more time and energy training their managers
how to solve this problem if they hope to be successful.”
“Trying to run an organization without tackling
the low performer problem is akin to building a house with shoddy
materials. No matter how skilled the labor, the structure
is going to collapse.”
Want to learn more?
If you're a MANAGER and want to "improve
or remove" low performers, attend the 2-day seminar What
Great Managers Do Differently. New dates in Las
Vegas and New York!
If you're an EXECUTIVE and want to create a culture
that executes without excuses, attend the 2-day seminar What
Great Executives Do Differently.
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