by Margaret Heffernan - Thursday, 6th September 2007

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Three years ago, I joined the board of a company whose management, I soon recognised, was incompetent. I said so but I was a new board member and the management had a lot of old friends and allies on the board.

Now the consequences of leaving the management alone threatens to sink the company.

How did I know this would happen? I’m not a seer and, trust me, I’m not gloating.

I knew because I’ve hired and fired so many incompetent people myself. I’ve learned to identify ten hallmarks of incompetence:

Bias against action. There are always plenty of reasons to wait for more information, more options, more opinions. But real leaders display a consistent bias for action.

People who don’t make mistakes generally don’t make anything. Beware procrastinators.

Secrecy. "We can’t tell the staff," is something I hear managers say repeatedly. They claim staff will be distracted, confused or simply unable to comprehend what is happening in the business.

But if you treat employees like children, they will behave that way - which means trouble. Very few matters in business must remain confidential and good managers can identify those easily.

The lover of secrecy is afraid of letting peers have the information they need to challenge him. Secrets make companies political, anxious and full of distrust.

Over-sensitivity. "I know she’s always late, but if I raise the subject, she’ll be hurt." Can your manager see a problem, address it headlong and move on?

If not, problems won’t get resolved, they’ll grow. When managers say staff are too sensitive, they are usually describing themselves.

Wilting violets don’t make great leaders. Weed them out. Interestingly, secrecy and over-sensitivity almost always travel together. They are a bias against honesty.

Love of procedure. Managers who cleave to the rule book, to points of order and who refer to colleagues by their titles have forgotten that rules and processes exist to expedite business, not ritualise it.

Love of procedure often masks a fatal tendency to polish the silver while the house is burning.

Preference for weak candidates. We interviewed three job candidates for a new position. One was too junior, the other rubbed everyone up the wrong way and the third was top-notch.

Who did our manager want to hire? The junior. She felt threatened by the super-competent manager and hadn’t the confidence to know you should always hire people smarter than yourself.

Focus on small tasks. Another senior salesperson I hired always produced the most perfect charts, forecasts and spreadsheets. She was always on time. S

he would volunteer for projects in which she had no core expertise - marketing plans, financial forecasts, meetings with bank managers, the office move. It was all to hide the fact that she could not do her real job - selling.

Allergy to deadlines. The manager who cannot set and stick to deadlines cannot honour commitments. A failure to meet deadlines also means no one can feel a true sense of achievement.

Inability to hire former employees. I hired a head of sales once with 20 years’ experience and (apparently) a luminous reputation.

But, as we staffed up, he never attracted any candidates from his old company. Every good manager has alumni, eager to join the team again; if they don’t, smell a rat.

Addiction to consultants. A common - but expensive - way to put off making decisions is to hire consultants who can recommend several alternatives.

While they’re figuring these out, managers don’t have to do anything. And when the consultant’s choices are presented, the ensuing debates can often absorb hours, days, months.

Long hours. In my experience, bad managers work very long hours. They think this is a brand of heroism but it is probably the single biggest hallmark of incompetence.

The manager who boasts of late nights, early mornings and no time off cannot manage himself - so you’d better not let him manage anyone else. Any one of these behaviours should sound a warning bell. More than two - sound the alarm!

Tags: great leaders, procrastinators, good managers, job candidates, incompetence, honesty,