Even when they have selected for talent, some managers are hamstrung by their fundamental mistrust of people. This mistrust might be a product of some deep-seated insecurity, or it might be couched as a rational conclusion—”I think the human race is basically driven by selfishness, and therefore most people will cut corners if they think they can get away with it.” But whatever its source, their mistrust means that these managers are extremely reluctant to let each employee find his or her own route to performance.
Plagued by the nagging suspicion that someone, somewhere, is taking advantage of them, a mistrustful manager’s only recourse is to impose rules. They spin a web of regulations over their world. Only through regulation, they believe, will they be able to protect themselves from people’s inevitable misdeeds.
For a mistrustful person, the manager role is incredibly stressful. The ambiguity—”What might that employee be doing!?”—and the suspicion—”Whatever it is, I’m sure it’s bad”—must be excruciating. Unfortunately for managers like this, the rules and regulations they impose rarely succeed in quelling their suspicions. They succeed merely in creating a culture of compliance that slowly strangles the organization of flexibility, responsiveness, and, perhaps most important, goodwill.
Consider this: If you are a teacher in Florida, it is illegal for you to use your judgment when assigning grades to your students. This is not an exaggeration. It is illegal. Driven by their mistrust and their desire to control, state legislators enacted a law defining percentages and grades. If a child scores above 94 percent, it is illegal for him to receive anything other than an A. If he scores between 85 percent and 93 percent, then he must receive a B. Arkansas is another state that saw fit to legislate away a teacher’s judgment, although they were a little more lenient on the children—in Arkansas 90 percent or above gets an A, while anything over 80 percent warrants a B.
Great school superintendents say that there is nothing wrong with offering teachers a grading/percentage guideline. Most states do it, and it helps to ensure consistency across districts. But a law? No wonder so many teachers feel they have lost the trust and goodwill of the people.
And what of the notion that “trust must be earned”? Sensible though it may sound, great managers reject it. They know that if, fundamentally, you don’t trust people, then there is no line, no point in time, beyond which people suddenly become trustworthy. Mistrust concerns the future. If you are innately skeptical of other people’s motives, then no amount of good behavior in the past will ever truly convince you that they are not just about to disappoint you. Suspicion is a permanent condition.
Of course, occasionally a person will indeed let you down. But great managers, like Michael, the restaurant manager from the introduction, are wired to view this as the exception rather than the rule. They believe that if you expect the best from people, then more often than not the best is what you get.
Innate mistrust is probably vital for some roles—lawyering or investigative reporting, for example. But for a manager it is deadly.
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