Do you have a manager who is driving your talent away?

Today I am sharing the story of an online friend, a scenario that I know happens far too often. Here’s the story:

“I was let go so an underling could have my position.

She was an evil little woman who constantly took credit for all the salespeople’s work, even if she was never involved. When she reported to me, I tried to get rid of her a few times but my boss always stepped in.

I even complained of insubordination (going up and down the chain of command) because my employee frequently had closed door, one-on-one meetings with my boss. I was verbally reprimanded for the complaint and told the word “insubordination” had no place in the department.

Once my employee was given my title and responsibilities, things started coming apart. Honestly, she probably thought I didn’t do anything all day and was paid handsomely for it. She couldn’t do the work the position required.

Suddenly every problem was caused by someone else and every success was her own achieved with no help from anyone else (which was well documented in my file on her).

After getting zero credit for all their hard work, and all of the blame for things that really had nothing to do with them, the top sales people started to leave. Not for bigger and better jobs, mind you, but leaving just to be away from a negative situation.

She had been working (even while she was working for me) on getting a new job with one of our vendors. After two years worth of manipulations, she was finally offered a job and left of her own accord. The new sales manager let me know that nothing had been maintained since my departure and everything was in shambles. With the variance in our track records, he wondered aloud how the woman had managed to stay there as long as she had. He also said that as soon as the boss was gone he was going to invite back all the top salespeople.”

Is someone driving away your top talent?

Some people are very talented at making themselves look good at other people’s expense. Like the toxic personality, an individual who is a power grabber will eventually make the actual performers leave the company especially when no one is listening to the concerns of the team. Like the person with the bad attitude who is making the work place hard to enjoy, this individual in her desire to take all the credit will drive the real workers to leave.

I had a few of these people in my life. People who just simply resented others who were praised instead of them. They tended to bully others until they just left.

If I had a guess, I would see these people as very insecure people who lack the creativity and energy to execute the work themselves.

Do you have people like this in your organization?

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