Being a star player in your prime does not mean you become a star coach after retirement. The same goes for company organizations. A high-performing individual contributor becoming a leader does not necessarily lead the team to high performance. That is because doing well alone and leading a team well are entirely different matters.
Recently, the JTBC drama "The story of Director General Kim, who works at a big company and owns a home in Seoul" has drawn attention for its realistic portrayal of office life. The protagonist is Sales Team 1 Head of Team, Director General Kim Nak-su, who made a name for himself in the sales field when he was an individual contributor. But team members only watch Director General Kim's mood and avoid him. Why has Director General Kim failed to earn his team's trust? Let's take Director General Kim's leadership as a negative example from the team members' point of view.
Old ways don't work
Director General Kim tries to assign the team's achievements to one team member to help with a promotion. The team member to be credited is Director Heo, Kim's peer who has failed to be promoted for more than 10 years. Director General Kim calls in the junior-most team member and says, "I'll make sure you get promoted the year after next, so please yield to Director Heo this time," expressing regret. When the junior-most team member, eyes welling up, asks whether they didn't do a good job, Director General Kim says, "You did well, but if I give everyone the same rating, it won't stand out. You're smart, so I think you'll understand." Even if one writes it off as unavoidable organizational circumstances, the junior-most team member's hurt feelings will not heal easily. A flood of anxieties follows: the sense of deprivation from not being recognized in proportion to one's contribution; resentment toward a leader who tries to decide ratings based on factors other than performance; the powerlessness of having no choice but to accept this unfair situation; and doubts about whether it is right to keep working in this organization.
Director General Kim damaged all three facets of fairness proposed by organizational justice theory.
First is "distributive fairness." It refers to whether performance or rewards were ultimately and rationally distributed. Director General Kim funneled ratings to the perennial Director and failed to give appropriate rewards to the junior-most team member who delivered the actual results.
Second is "procedural fairness." It refers to whether the decision-making process was objective and transparent. Even if the outcome is unsatisfactory, members accept it if the process makes sense. But Director General Kim scored based on personal judgment rather than objective grounds. There was no sufficient discussion with the person concerned.
The last is "interactional fairness." It means whether members were respected and dealt with sincerely in the course of communication. Director General Kim hurried to end the conversation with the junior-most team member as if to avoid discomfort. In effect, he tried to gloss over the situation. Such leadership drives talent away.
According to a survey by the recruiting platform JobKorea of 1,252 office workers in their 20s to 40s nationwide on Jun., the No. 1 "company you wouldn't want to work for even with a high salary" was "a company with unethical managers (34.5%)." It was followed by "a company whose management style and values don't match mine (33.9%)" and "a company with an unfair compensation system (30.6%)."
In sum, office workers value a fair organization where common sense prevails more than money.
A one-sided monologue that silences the team
Seeing the neighboring team's Head of Team interacting comfortably with team members, Director General Kim decides to actively "communicate" with his own team. While having tea with a team member, Director General Kim says, "I'll be a Head of Team who listens and meets you at your level," but he cuts the team member off and keeps talking only about himself. There is no ping-pong of conversation; he just keeps kibitzing. The team member feels so fatigued by the conversation that they think, "I want to go back to the office and work." Regardless of the team member's blank reaction, Director General Kim is more pleased and eager than ever, saying, "We should have had time like this much earlier."
The greater the power distance between a boss and subordinates, the more often you see the boss talking alone rather than having an exchange. Bosses have a lot they want to say, but members become cautious about saying even a word for fear of misspeaking. The more leaders themselves feel they hold power, the more they monopolize the conversation.
According to research at Harvard University in the United States, the main driver of a leader monopolizing conversation is a "subjective sense of power." The more they feel they have power, the more they believe, "You may be right, but I am more right." This attitude increasingly silences team members. Opportunities for leaders to hear team members' stories gradually disappear, which negatively affects trust in the leader. According to Gallup, leaders who always listen to team members were more than four times as likely to be trusted by their teams than when they did not. By contrast, leaders who do not respect team members' words have difficulty earning trust.
Feedback without meaning is nitpicking and fault-finding
Director General Kim conducts a final review of the "new sales strategy" presentation (PT) materials that a team member designed from start to finish. Although he had instructed the team member to wrap it up on their own, the team member requests a final review from Director General Kim before the final submission. "Director General, this is really final and hard to revise. As is, it will go to the senior managing director and the executive vice president." Director General Kim reverses his own instruction and scrutinizes the PT materials.
But the feedback that came back to the team member was about formal aspects such as letter spacing, font, and font color. There was no other feedback. The team member says, "Director General, you must be busy; we can clean up things like that…" Director General Kim cuts the team member off and says nonchalantly, "If you had done well, I wouldn't be busy." While readability and design matter, there is no mention of the content at all, leaving the team member at a loss.
For younger generations, the belief that they will grow serves as an important motivator. That is why they want "meaningful feedback" that drives growth and performance. Questions like "How should we improve it?" and "If it was done well, what was done well?" come from the desire to achieve better outcomes. For the sake of growth, they are more than willing to accept constructive tough talk.
According to a May 2024 survey by JobKorea and Albamon, the No. 1 ideal boss chosen by 2,282 office workers in their 20s to 40s was "a boss whose feedback is clear (42%)." The younger the respondents were, the more pronounced their demand for such feedback.
In fact, from a leader's perspective, effective feedback is the best investment for growing the team. It boosts employees' engagement and productivity. According to a Gallup survey in Jan. 2024 (about 15,000 respondents), 80% of employees who said they received meaningful feedback in the past week were fully engaged, and engaged employees had 14% higher productivity than those who were not. Depending on what feedback leaders gave, the team's engagement level and performance differed.
In the novel on which the drama is based, Director General Kim's boss advises Director General Kim as follows. "You know, right? Before I became Head of Team, I wasn't particularly recognized. I wasn't better than my team members at anything. So do you know what the very first thing I did after becoming Head of Team was? I created an environment where team members could do their work well."
There is no perfect leader in the world. Reflecting on yourself and thinking about what you can start doing right now can be the starting point for exercising good leadership.