The current crisis of confidence in UK management may have been fuelled by an over quota of ‘technical specialists’ filling managerial roles who lack the necessary leadership and management skills to keep staff engaged, according to a performance culture specialist from Q4 Solutions. Following the recent CBI report which revealed many employees had little confidence in their managers, Nigel Watson, of Q4 Solutions, voiced concerns that the UK’s long history of organisations ducking difficult performance issues and ‘sideways promoting’ staff instead of performance managing problem staff out of the organisation could be to blame.

He claims that management teams within businesses are suffering from a hangover of ‘technical specialists’, whose technical competence needed rewarding to entice them to stay – but that meant they were promoted into a managerial position for which they were untrained and unsuited. According to Watson, things could improve if organisations focused on innovative ways to manage talent, including working towards a performance- (not power-) led culture.

Comment: There seems to have been a rather unfortunate outbreak of reality here. Hopefully, after a few weeks off for the Christmas and New Year break, everyone will have forgotten about this – and then organisations and their management teams won’t have to grasp this rather tricky nettle. Of course, the performance of ‘UK plc’ won’t improve but, while their organisations exist, many people who don’t deserve them will pocket some handsome salaries.