Many managers used their position of authority to abuse their subordinates. When the subordinates escape from them they tell upper management that something was wrong with the subordinates.
One in two people admitted to having left a job to get away from a bad manager
Do people really leave managers or companies?
Do people really leave managers or companies? If it’s true, how can you fix the problem?
The data suggests bad management is a real and significant issue. Seems that only few managers ask themselves the real questions:
- Am I the reason people are leaving?
- Was it because of something I did, or something I didn’t do?
Many managers assume they’re not the problem, but that their employees are (for psychologists, see the Dunning-Kruger effect for more information ^_^ ). The biggest causes for failure (thanks to High Point University) are lack of:
70% of the factors that contribute to your happiness at work are directly related to your manager
Here I’m writing some advide to help you to be a good manager (and leader) and not a bad boss:
1. Give feedback
Giving feedback is a powerful tool for growing your people and your team. It’s also one of the hardest thing to do in the right way. Do it wrong, and you’ll turn your most proactive tool into something that causes unwanted collateral damage. You have to think on how the other person might receive the feedback. Don’t give feedback in the moment if the tone or timing isn’t right, you can always save your feedback for another time, and a more private or less stressful setting.
Feedback is a gift!
2. Enjoy your success
It’s easy for managers to get caught up with looking forward all the tim or to focus exclusively on problem. Stop one moment and enjoy/celebrate your team’s success and make sure team members know they’re having impact. It could be as simple as giving someone detailed, timely feedback on something they just did really well or passing along some positive feedback you received from your boss about your team’s recent work.
Celebrate your team’s success and make sure team members know they’re having impact
3. Don’t blame, own
“That’s not my problem” or “that’s not my fault” must not be in your culture. Ownership is the key word!
Every person is different. Just because one management style worked with some team members and it’s not “working” with one person doesn’t necessarily mean it’s his fault. It’s on you to make the right management style is being used for all of your team.
Managers are judged on the team’s effort
When things go wrong, I try and figure out out my own role in the situation. What are the things that I have done, or not done, that have contributed to the problems at hand? If I have any trouble identifying these, I ask for advice from my coworkers. Often after doing this exercise I discover the right next step is not to give “constructive feedback” to someone on my team about their mistakes, it’s to get feedback on how I can better support them in future.
4. Always ask for advice
If I have someone on my team who’s not performing as well as I’d like I ask for help on how to coach them differently. You can do this with everyone, people related or not, and have a better outcome as a result.
You should always be asking for peer review on a people management problem before you take action, whether that’s from your own manager, your HR team, etc. The bigger the potential consequence of your action, the more thorough you should be about getting help and peer review before making it.
5. Great managers build great companies
Ask for advice and give feedback with empathy! Only great managers build great companies!