Tweet This
'Tis the season to be jolly, but in many offices the Ebeneezer Scrooge approach to management is alive and well. The worst managers lead to decreased performance, a slump in engagement and even increased employee turnover: far and away the most common reason individuals give for quitting their job is their line manager. The flip side of this is that the very best managers bring about a 25% uplift in performance.
But what actually makes the difference between a stellar manager and a so-so one? It comes down to the relationships they build with their direct reports, through hundreds of everyday interactions. Here are the top seven management mistakes that make team members miserable.
- Trying to be the buddy
As Chandler Bing discovered to his peril in the sitcom Friends, it’s nigh-on impossible to be both a buddy and a good boss. To succeed at the latter managers must let go of their natural need to be liked. Strong interpersonal relationships are important to managers only because they help to get the job done. The best managers take an interest in their direct reports’ lives, while maintaining the appropriate distance that allows them to gain respect.
- Micro-managing
A bugbear that’s as old as management itself; all managers have triggers that set them into micromanagement mode. The challenge is realizing that although it may seem easier to dictate every last detail (or even step in and do the job yourself), in the long-run this will only lead to demotivated team members whose skills are flat-lining. In fact, research shows that when people believe they are being closely monitored on a task their performance drops. Particularly odious to their team is the ‘seagull’ micro-manager: the boss who takes a big picture view and is uninterested in the detail, before swooping in at the last minute and changing everything.
- Being emotionally unstable
When a bad boss is in a bad mood, everybody knows about it. The quality of their feedback and the outcomes of performance appraisals depend on the day he or she is having, so good luck to the team member whose one-to-one comes after a tough meeting with the board. What’s more, these managers allow themselves to get drawn into mind games, falling into the familiar parent-child relationship trap. At best, their team members avoid contact because they’re never quite sure where they stand. At worst, they get locked into conflict which erodes performance and undermines the whole team’s morale.
- Asking endless questions
Over 80% of organizations use coaching, but only a small proportion of those get it right. One of the most frustrating experiences for a team member is a coaching session in which their manager asks endless questions of increasingly little relevance: “what would you say if you did know the answer?” Long-winded and with little payoff, there comes a point when a manager must step in and offer some answers based on their own invaluable experience.
Find out how to make millennials, Boomers and everyone in between fall in love your business.
- Stifling innovation
Rejecting ideas outright without explanation; focusing on why things can’t be done; championing the status quo – there are myriad ways in which poor managers stifle innovation. The result? Stagnant team members who are bored yet afraid to experiment, and who long to be poached by more innovative competitors, where managers nourish creativity by saying “why not?” rather than “why?”
- Withholding the facts
In turbulent times lousy managers either sugar-coat their messages or, worse, don’t communicate at all. People can spot spin a mile off and failing to address issues head on only gives the grapevine precedent. People who have trust in their organization are happier at work and more likely to stay there. That trust doesn’t come from senior leadership or an employee handbook; it stems from first-line managers. Bosses who give inconsistent messages, lack credibility and act as a ‘post-box’ from the top (“I’m just the messenger…”) rank alongside used car salesmen in the inauthenticity leagues.
- Never taking their foot off the gas
Unless you work in a monastery, you’ll be familiar with the frenetic pace of business life. Managers are increasingly expected to deliver more with less so it’s no wonder “go-go-go” is the norm. But where lousy managers differ from their decent counterparts is that they fail to stop, breathe and celebrate successes before moving onto the next. As a result their team members feel overworked, underappreciated and a thousand times less motivated to get stuck in. According to a study of 12,000 employee diary entries, making meaningful progress has the biggest impact on a positive ‘inner work life’, so good managers take the time to reflect on how far they’ve come.
Of course while some people are predisposed to be more emotionally stable or sociable than others, exceptional bosses are by no means born that way. They’re simply lucky enough to work for organizations that prioritize investing in management, confident in the knowledge that doing so will see the greatest return.
Follow @DrSebBailey on twitter or on Forbes at the top of this post.
My new book, Mind Gym: Achieve More by Thinking Differently is now available in bookstores nationwide.
