Reality Check
A direct report of mine would frequently leave me out of the loop as problems escalated, preferring instead to “work harder”. It was clear that he felt uncomfortable delivering bad news to me (his boss) when things were not going according to plan.
One day at our weekly sit-down, I explained that my role as manager was to facilitate his success, but to do that effectively I needed to know what was going on, emphasizing that when I heard nothing, what I imagined was almost certainly far worse than what was actually happening. Therefore, it would be better for him to make sure I had a clear grasp on the reality of the situation, even if things were not perfect. Plus, if we could openly discuss bad news, we could jointly develop ideas and solutions to fix the problem.
At the end of our talk, in the small notebook he always carried around he jotted down a single word – “Reality”. Our collaboration improved significantly after that day.
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