It turns out that the most intelligent people (IQ ) do not make the best or even good managers. Management requires more that technical skills and knowledge it is about more that than budgets it is about people. To manage people you need insight into how your behaviour effects others and be able to adjust your behave accordingly as well as demonstrating compassion and empathy(EQ).

However in todays diverse (multicultural ) workforce to get the best out of all your employees you need to recognise your unconscious bias and be able to relate to people who have very different life experiences to your own (CQ). Or are we over complicating the role of manager and making unrealistic expectations surely it mostly just common sense. The job of a manager is to get people to do what needs to be done. If you did their job before you were promoted you know what needs to be done and how it should be done. You’re the boss. You’ve in charge. You make your expectations clear. People do what they’re told. Until they don’t.

Until you experience resistance and underperformance management is easy. What happens when one of your team starts routinely questioning your decisions, adopts a very negative and pessimistic attitude summed up as “ it won’t work”. ‘ can’t be done”. It’s passive resistance they don’t refuse to do what you ask  they do it reluctantly or they do the minimum, you’re constantly chasing them up for work that’s about to be overdue, their  work can be careless meaning you have to double check everything they do and they never use their own initiative despite their experience they insist in checking every step with you. It’s frustrating, time consuming and energy sapping and having a demoralising effect on the rest of the team. Worse it’s undermining your authority. Why are they behaving like this and what should you do?

Or perhaps the problem is you’re not getting the best out of an individual despite their ability they just don’t seem to fit in, get on with the rest of the team, they’re clearly unhappy. What’s the answer?

The very enthusiastic member of the team who has suddenly becomes disenchanted with work, is just going through the motions and seems disinterested and distracted. Somethings wrong but they say not. What can you do?

Is the answer common sense or to solve these issues would the manager need insight into the effect of their behaviour (EQ) and the ability to relate to people different to them (CQ) plus a little help from HR?