Employees have high behavioral expectations of their managers, and managerial behavior meets this expectation only half of the time, according to a study by Brussels company Krauthammer.

In the core areas of management behavior that were surveyed, amongst the biggest gaps between the expectations of employees and reality were the following:

• 95% would like their manager to analyze their task problems together with them, 41% experience this.
• 86% would like their manager to create the right context prior to implementing a decision, this is the case 42% of the time.
• 82% would like their manager to listen to their ideas, and encourage them to continue, 56% experience this.

Employees want to be heard, and they want more involvement. Managers need to develop listening and mentoring skills.

Managers are a bit closer in meeting the expectations of their employees in the following areas:

• 94% would expect their manager to spontaneously admit their mistakes, and 69% actually do this.
• 90% would like to be fully involved in the definition of their development goals, and this is the case 68% of the time.
• 83% would expect their manager to arbitrate conflicts, and 65% of the time this indeed happens.

“These potentially alarming results show that in many key tasks, and basic management skills, such as guiding others, listening to ideas, securing delivery and giving feedback, managers simply fail to meet their employees’ expectations. And this lack of performance obviously has a direct impact on companies’ success in business itself, so these results present company executives with interesting food for thought, to say the least.”

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