Bad Managers Create Disgruntled Employees

Set a clear path to bring disgruntled employees back into the fold.

• Encourage me more. When we asked the unhappy 16% to name the skill they thought was most important for their boss to demonstrate, the top response was "Inspire and motivate others." Too often, managers take a negative tone with disgruntled employees. Expecting that efforts to motivate will be ignored, none are proffered, and the expectations become self-fulfilling but data suggest managers should take the opposite view: Work harder to inspire this group. Keep the conversation positive. Plan for, and expect the best, not the worst.
• Trust me more. It's probably not surprising that both parties — unhappy employee and bosses alike — distrust each other. The key to restoring trust is to operate with the belief that the other party can change. We encourage the manager to make the first move (cause that's your job) by making the effort to understand the employee's problems. Then, as both parties work on their relationship, they must strive for consistency —that is, the manager must strive to treat all employees equally, and both parties must strive to simply do what they say they will do. Over time, trust will grow.
• Take an interest in my development. If a person works hard and gets a pay check he has a job but if a person works hard, gets a pay check, and learns a new skill, she has a career. Career development should not be focused only on the high-potentials. As counterintuitive as it may seem, don't leave the underachievers out when distributing stretch assignments.
• Keep me in the loop. Communication is fundamentally a core management function, so this responsibility rests squarely with the managers. Great communicators do three things well. First, they share information and keep everyone well informed. Second, they ask good questions, inviting the opinions and views from others — all others. Third, they listen to everyone, not just the people they like.
• Be more honest with me. People want to know how they're really doing on the job — and the one's not in favour perhaps even more than the one's feeling the warm glow of approval. They want to know why they're falling short. They want a chance to improve. Too often, though, the bottom 16% feel their bosses are shirking their responsibility by not giving honest feedback, glossing over problems with comments like "You're coming along fine," when clearly they are not. Alarmingly, many reported promises being made ("if you finish this project on time then...") that were not kept. Honesty is the bedrock of good relationships.
• Connect with me more. Anything managers can to do improve their relationship with the disgruntled employees will have a significant positive influence. Here's where favoritism takes on its most concrete form: managers go to lunch more with people they like, our data show; they talk with them more socially (about children, sports, etc); they know them more personally. This is natural (and unprofessional), but so are the feelings of exclusion it creates among the less favoured. A small effort by managers to spread their attention around more broadly can go a long way here.

As a bad leader, your knee-jerk reaction to unfavoured (and disgruntled) employees is often — "It's their own fault!" Research shows this is not the case and that it is the result of shallow and unprofessional management, which begs the question "Who's managing the managers?"

Before you settle for letting your dissatisfied people go and cost your organisation thousands in employee turnover, take a moment to consider how these performers need and should be treated.

Lessons on teamwork from really bad team members

The best managers understand that effective leaders are also solid team players. The workplace is filled with capable teammates, even some who take initiative, overdeliver and inspire colleagues.

Unfortunately, there’s also the occasional employee who has no idea how to collaborate or communicate effectively.

Such poor performers aren’t entirely useless, though. They offer some of the most poignant lessons on teamwork and leadership.

Here are seven things failing team members do and what you can learn from them.

1. Complain about everyone and everything. The worst co-workers are often the most negative ones. Employees who complain regularly about others — or about circumstances in general — do little to help the team and much to hurt it. The most effective team members stay positive and find good ways to provide feedback.
2. Gossip regularly (about work or personal issues). Nothing breeds distrust and paranoia like gossiping in the workplace. Team members who spread — or worse, start — rumors are literally sowing the seeds of discord. The best team members and leaders express an interest in colleagues’ personal life bust respect everyone’s privacy and dignity.
3. Hoard knowledge. There’s nothing wrong with a lust for learning, but ineffective team members often accumulate as many secrets as possible and are loath to share helpful information with co-workers. Hoarders think their unique knowledge is valuable, but they don’t realize that unshared knowledge is useless. The best team members establish themselves as experts by becoming go-to resources in their field of specialization.
4. Talk almost completely about themselves. There’s nothing wrong with self-promotion and increasing your visibility at work, but poor team members take this quality to a fault. They’re especially likely to use words such as “I” and “me” and take individual credit for their team’s success. On the other hand, the best teammates promote their team’s success, ask lots of questions, know when to listen and use words such as “we” and “us.”
5. Play the blame game. Every team member — from executive to entry-level employee — should learn to take responsibility for his or her actions. By casting blame, workers actually diminish their sphere of influence, personal autonomy, others’ trust in them and colleagues’ respect. The most successful team members take responsibility for success and failure and right any mistake if possible.
6. Look for reasons to exclude people. Some teammates try to create small, insular groups and find every reason to limit the size and definition of their team. Such focus on exclusivity only limits the team’s perspective and options. High-performing teams cast the widest net possible and examine every reasonable solution or resource.
7. Lack empathy. It might be easy for some workers to lose sight of their teammates’ feelings, but there’s almost never a good excuse for doing so. The worst team members show an actively callous disregard for colleagues’ well-being. On the other hand, the most successful ones keep lines of communication open, pay attention to colleagues and make themselves as approachable.

If you want to become an effective, brilliant team member, take a look at your poorest-performing teammates and do the opposite.

Once you master the skills of clear and effective communication, building positive relationships at work, promoting yourself and teammates, and taking responsibility for your actions, you’ll be on your way to becoming a highly effective team leader.

Women Bullies as Managers

Women Bullies in the Office as Managers

Bullying Bosses and Women

Building Careers or Selling Dreams and Magic Beans

Let me tell you a tale of caution and disillusionment but maybe also of unrealistic hopes and an, all to rapid relinquishing of personal responsibilities.

A sad fact of life is that there are a large number of people currently unemployed and an even larger number that fear they will soon be unemployed.

A large number of these people will be either senior in status or senior in years and it is this group that can be so easily disarmed, during such times.

Its been a long time since they were in the job market and longer still since they had to ask other people for help. Our tale begins with Mr F, a newly unemployed hard working guy, desperate to regain his status and station in life and also, in the eyes of his family. Unfortunately, desperation is a negative emotion and a poor master.

Outplacement Companies
Seeking an edge to regain his rightful place in society, Mr. F paid an outplacement company $8,250, believing it would help him land a six-figure job in his area. At least that's what their sales person promised. Unfortunately, the company did little more than redo his résumé, encourage him to cold-call employers and expand his network.

Took Advantage
Mr. F, aged 58, firmly believes that the company misrepresented its services and exaggerated its capabilities. He eventually found a job, but without their help, and gratefully received a partial refund from the outplacement company, after threatening to report them to the authorities.

Alarming Concept
This alarm, raised to the righteous authorities, is simply a vain but heart felt cry, to some unseen, and benign power of 'goodness' or 'justice' that is said to pervade the complex societies in which we live. Our 'state' buildings are decorated with statues that give fantastic form to these concepts but they are rarely seen in public.

Two Sides
One side of the argument says that the company misrepresented itself but the other sides says that Mr. F’s expectations were too high. Either way there was a misalignment or lack of negotiation but Mr F's experience does highlight the naivity and vulnerability of job seekers, when they are seeking help in the most difficult of job markets in decades.

Unregulated
Job seekers can encounter a bewildering and largely unregulated array of individuals and businesses offering various levels of assistance. While some people have clearly benefited from their work, others have accused the companies of using misleading sales tactics. Selling little more than promises and vain hope.

Up Front Fees
Unprofessional “career management” or “career marketing” companies, which charge large up-front fees, are easy to stumble upon, the're on every employment Web sites. From the other side, it is certainly very easy to contact job seekers, once they have posted their résumés, they are in the public domain.

Senior Service
Given a startling choice, it is clearly more lucrative to focus on senior professionals and managers of advancing age, easily massaging their egos by claiming only to accept the most desirable and marketable candidates.

Beware of companies that place advertisements that appear to be job postings but instead are lures for their sales pitches.

Valuable Support
Many good employment and outplacement services provide valuable support and assistance, but others can easily misrepresent themselves and the effectiveness of their services, in an attempt to take your money. It is not difficult to find good, legitimate agencies that will meet your needs, but it is critical that you do your research and homework first.

Overhauling CVs
Many of the companies do little more than provide ordinary job search assistance: overhauling résumés and assisting with covering or introductory letters, giving advice on how to start networking and helping sort through open or public job listings. While this can be a legitimate and useful service, much of it you can do yourself or it can be obtained more cheaply elsewhere.

No Happy Ending
To stop you getting bored, let's look at another example. Mr B, aged 44, who managed the technology centre of an Technical college before losing his job during a restructuring, paid a career management company $5,000, after responding to what he thought was a job posting for professionals looking to earn $100,000 a year.

Instead, he got a sales pitch from a professional careers hijacker. He was told that a search for someone his age would normally take 13 months but that the company would cut that in half, guaranteed.

Magic Beans
Mr. B believed that the company was a high-end recruiter, with access to a vast and somehow magical, “hidden job market” At least that's how the company officials put it. They claimed that they had connections to positions unavailable to regular job seekers. A 'secret' path to a quick solution.

Only later, after he began working with the company, did he realise that it did not have any special pathways to job openings. He demanded a refund but got nowhere. Two years later, he still does not have a job, and the company’s charge on his credit card has helped push him and his wife to file for bankruptcy.

Summary
In the end, Mr. F was very unsatisfied with the service he received from his outplacement company but by then, he had taken another job which he got through his own efforts, using his old résumé.

Misalignment
You could claim that in both cases, the company maintained their morale and motivation over the period of unemployment and, in Mr F's case, you could equally claim that they had given him the impetus and confidence to do well during the interview but, is that what the company claimed they would do when first they met and agreed the contract, perhaps not. Perhaps the company under stated their ability to 'influence' the candidates.

Influence
The power to influence others is most effective when the other party is unaware of being manipulated or directed. Our wives and partners do it all the time and still we remain together. Only when the curtain accidently falls and the charade is revealed do we feel cheated, used and misled and then we realise it was all done for our own good.

Magic Solutions

We readily accept external influences in advertising and marketing. We even suspend our dis-belief at the movies but for some reason in desperate times and in the face of adversity, we are all too willing to believe in the 'snake oil' of instant resolutions, the 'magic bullet' of quick results, or the 'magic beans' of sustainable new growth, that the brightly dressed wizard is selling. Reality bites and sometimes it bites very hard.

Remain open to new opportunities but do not travel unguarded against old advesaries.
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