HR have to get better at proving the impact of jerk leaders

Unfortunately, this is still true and is a major part of HR’s challenge. Especially when the jerks are top leaders.

Every person reading this will be able to think of at least one jerk.

We in HR have to get better at proving the impact of jerk leaders.

Let’s take the recent Post Office scandal and the devastating impact of one person’s decisions. Evidence is now emerging about how it happened. The responsibility for catastrophic decisions, resulting in severe damage to the organisation’s right to operate as well as to individual people, is now falling at the feet of the CEO.

HR Grapevine recently reported that ‘Internal government documents presented at the Horizon inquiry revealed the worries raised about Vennells’ ability to lead, with one concern being that she was “unable to work with personalities that provide robust challenge to her”.

So, people tried to argue but found it impossible. How does this happen?

I don’t know enough about the Post Office to make a judgement, but I have seen plenty of behaviour that’s from the dark age of arrogance and ignorance.

Organisations are more complex than numbers, and their success is based on the right combination of many ingredients.

As Dave Ulrich said in his recent article on Stakeholder Value, business acumen is important but we can go further: ‘Evolving from knowing the business to Stakeholder Value offers a number of contributions for increasing the impact of HR’.

The concept of Stakeholder Value also provides a direct and visible path for HR to prove their value. The links can be illuminated and proved by People Analytics – between HR’s work on culture and capability and the right outcomes for all stakeholders.

Because we have Analytics wizard George Naylor and his team, we can help you to build a starter dashboard that can evolve into a rigorous tool to demonstrate the value of all your great work.

Including the impact of jerks.