Originally published in the Association Resource, the newsletter of the Empire State Society of Association Executives (ESSAE)
Many leaders have good intentions, but get overwhelmed or have never received training in being a good leader. As a result even with good intentions they may demotivate their employees and encourage the good ones to leave!
Some bosses take their responsibility so seriously, they don’t give anyone room to breathe. They hover, they check and recheck, and they give overly detailed instructions to skilled and knowledgeable employees. They don’t provide opportunities for innovation and creativity. Employees feel discounted, disrespected, and depressed.
Other leaders focus so much on creativity that employees become unclear about what’s expected of them and what they are supposed to do. This can lead to chaos, anxiety and resentment.
Other bosses want to build a high performing team so they look for mistakes, catch them quickly and either fix them themselves or tell their workers how to fix it. They rarely focus on the positive and rarely give any feedback other than criticism and correction. They will critique every error. Staff feel disrespected, discounted, unappreciated or even under attack.
Other supervisors want to protect their staff from making a mistake so they delegate as little as possible and monitor employees’ work very closely. Another form of micromanagement.
Some bosses are nervous nellies and always focus on what might go wrong. They talk about and look for any and all weaknesses with the goal of correcting for them. The impact is that people experience a negative environment that saps their energy and enthusiasm.
Some leaders are very friendly and try to be friends with all their workers. That can get them into tangled relationships and can irritate those employees who want to focus on business.
Other managers focus strictly on business and their more friendly employees feel slighted, ignored or put down.
Leadership is challenging! Leaders need to build a team where everyone feels valued and is working toward the same goals. Employees want their efforts to be noted and appreciated, their ideas given active consideration, their input requested, and allowed to do the jobs for which they are qualified without extensive direction. It gets complicated in that different employees have different preferences about how they are treated and one size does not fit all. We’ve developed a model that helps shine a light on these differences and give leaders insights into how to adapt their approach to better connect with their team.
As you read this article, did you see bits of yourself and your team in some of the descriptions? What’s especially frustrating is that even with the best of intentions we can inadvertently demotivate some of our staff who have different styles and preferences.
Questions? Email me at: Alan@KriegerSolutions.com