Not Always the Employee: When Poor Management is the Real Performance Problem
By Rose Byass
It’s Not Always the Employee: When Poor Management is the Real Performance Problem
Too often, when a new employee “doesn’t work out,” we assume it’s a hiring issue. Maybe they weren’t a cultural fit, didn’t have the right attitude, or failed to deliver quickly enough. But what if the problem wasn’t the employee — what if it was the manager? In my experience across mining, construction, and corporate leadership, I’ve observed a consistent blind spot: underdeveloped leadership skills in line managers. Rather than guiding and supporting new employees, some managers default to micromanagement, cold communication, and social exclusion — behaviours that, whether intended or not, cross the line into workplace bullying. This isn’t just bad leadership. It’s bad neuroscience.
SCARF: A Science-Backed Framework for Leadership Behaviour
The NeuroLeadership Institute’s SCARF® Model outlines five key social needs every person brings to work:
Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness, and Fairness. When managers undermine these, they trigger a threat response in the brain — the same response we’d have to physical danger. Consider this:
- A new hire is excluded from informal team chats ( Relatedness threat)
- Their input is ignored in meetings ( Status threat)
- They’re not told what’s expected until they “get it wrong” ( Certainty and Fairness threat)
- Every detail of their work is questioned ( Autonomy threat)
The result? Withdrawal. Anxiety. Resentment. Performance suffers — and so does retention.
The Real Root of Poor Management
What often goes unexamined is how poorly equipped many managers are to support and develop others. Leaders are frequently promoted based on tenure or technical expertise — not emotional intelligence, communication skills, or people development. They are rarely trained in neuroscience, team dynamics, or psychological safety. Many fall back on outdated command-and-control habits, unconsciously repeating patterns from their own early careers: sink-or-swim initiation, fear-based performance reviews, and reactive communication. Instead of empowering new employees, these behaviours create a culture of fear and self-protection — especially in high-pressure or competitive environments. Additionally, some managers lack the bandwidth or support to manage new starters well. Under stress, they become transactional rather than relational. They mistake authority for effectiveness and confuse silence for alignment. In this environment, new hires are left to interpret ambiguous signals and often blame themselves for underperforming. This kind of managerial dysfunction is particularly damaging to new employees, who are at their most vulnerable. The early days in a role shape confidence, engagement, and identity within the team. When those days are marked by exclusion, criticism, or inconsistency, the psychological damage can last far beyond their probation period.
Communication Style = Culture
Let’s pair SCARF with the SSG model: Speak in ways that are Succinct, Specific, and Generous. Most underperforming managers don’t lack authority — they lack clarity and empathy. If your communication is vague, indirect, or overly critical, your team will expend more energy decoding you than doing their actual work.Great leaders know how to:
- Deliver feedback without ego
- Explain the “why,” not just the “what”
- Show belief in new starters by giving them space, not surveillance
So, What Can We Do?
Organisations must stop treating performance issues in isolation. A poor outcome doesn’t always mean a poor hire — it may reflect poor onboarding, unclear expectations, or relational threats from leadership. Leaders need training in social neuroscience, not just policy. Understanding how the brain responds to threat and reward at work is the difference between a manager who creates psychological safety and one who creates turnover. Employees deserve more than just “fitting in” — they deserve to be set up for success.
Final Thought
The issue isn’t always with the new hire. Sometimes the problem is higher up the chain — in the quality of leadership, communication, and relational dynamics. If we want safer, healthier, more productive workplaces, we need to stop pointing the finger outward and start leading inward. At Robust Leaders, we help organisations build management capability from the inside out — using science, safety, and strategy.
