Sometimes, being well-meaning doesn't cut it. Exactly what you say, and exactly when you say it, can have a tremendous impact on how employees feel about their role in an organization, their leadership and their perceptions of their own value in their job. Here are nine things to avoid in dealing with employees, adapted from an article in Forbes.
1. Taking employee effort for granted. Employees want respect and appreciation from leaders, if not for material advancement, then to feel comfortable and effective in their work.
2. Lack of recognition. A leader taking credit for an employee's ideas or efforts in any sense may encourage employees to stop coming up with creative or innovative ideas.
3. Constant criticism. While some criticism is certainly necessary, where, when and how criticism is applied is crucial. Placing unwarranted blame on employees is never okay, and helping employees fix a problem can be more effective than criticism, even when it is warranted.
4. Coaching employees to fall in line with leadership's beliefs. It is unrealistic to expect employees to be exactly like leadership. While being in sync is important for organizational success, diversity in thought is also what can save workplaces from being blindsided by challenges for which they are unprepared, due to homogenous thought processes.
5. Hypocrisy. Even when leadership is successful, hypocrisy is a sure way to lose employee trust and respect.
6. Delegating too much or not enough. Placing trust in employees to accomplish delegated work is important, but leaders should be sure they are also pulling their weight. Delegation opportunities should be synonymous with mentoring opportunities.
7. Micromanagement. Employees will not react well to a constant hovering presence over their work. They'll believe leadership doesn't trust them to deliver results and may lose self confidence, be purposely difficult or cease to trust leadership as a result.
8. Manipulation. No one likes to be manipulated. For long-term results, tell employees like it is. Give employees legitimate, worthy stakes in whatever project might be on the table, rather than tricking them into putting forth their best efforts.
9. Not valuing employees. When employees don't feel valued as individuals and as parts of their organization, they will leave, and rightfully so.
More articles on leadership & management:
Serve locally, govern nationally: Board recruitment goes borderless