Bad Bosses Need to C.H.I.L.L.

I love my job, but I hate my boss. Get me out, even if I have to take a pay cut, is a common refrain for people jumping ship. For bosses, the message is clear: Treat your people with respect and recognize their achievements. Salary is not always the prime motivator. 

People are generally motivated by achievement, recognition, advancement and salary. They seek to feel comfortable at work and have a good working relationship with their boss. Bosses need to put aside their personal issues and be fair to allow employees to move forward with their job performance and stay out of office politics.
 
There's plenty of bad boss behavior that drives good employees away. A Florida State University study showed common mistreatment by bosses includes: failing to give credit when due, failing to keep promises, making negative comments about them to colleagues, invading employees' privacy, and blaming others to cover up mistakes or to minimize embarrassment.

A large contributing factor in such bad behavior is companies promoting for the wrong reasons. Just because an employee can make more widgets than their peers does not mean they are good supervisors. Job knowledge and performance is important, but people skills are the critical factor in choosing supervisors. This includes communication, honesty, integrity and listening. In today's workforce, supervisors usually are dealing with a multi-generational, multi-cultural workforce that is social media savvy and wants to feel valued.  They are looking for supervisors who focus on employees' accomplishments.

Companies often compound their supervisory errors by not providing training, coaching or mentoring for new supervisors. While providing an individual class or training session to a supervisor will be helpful, learning to become a leader is an ongoing process. Good leaders realize they do not know it all and never will. They also know they are facilitating the exchange of knowledge, but are receiving as much as they give to create a positive company culture.

In short, bad bosses need to CHILL: Communicate, be Honest, have Integrity, Listen and demonstrate Leadership.

Communication

Employees have many skill sets. Mind reading is not one of them. Communication is the most important trait of a good boss, supervisor, and/or leader. It is the ability to let employees know what their job is, what's expected of them, and how they are to perform. Bosses should talk to employees face to face and in private. Meetings should include positive performance-not just the things that need work. Bosses should always refrain from belittling or critiquing employees in front of others. They should have a free exchange of ideas with employees by inviting questions and input to reinforce the employee's confidence. Having a truly open door policy with the employees is important.  While breakdowns in communication are common in the workplace, there are fewer instances where mutual respect exists between the boss and the employee as they have risen above the Blame Game.

Honesty

All good relationships are based on honesty, and work relationships are no different. Be candid about job performance. If you feel that they are not performing their job in a proper manner, explain ways to improve in person, and do not wait until the evaluation period. Always begin with the negatives and end with the positives to let employees leave the discussion motivated. Be honest with yourself as a supervisor by evaluating your weaknesses and realizing  your workers may have similar weak points. Allow them to trust you by being straightforward with them. They will recognize your honesty and respond in a reciprocal manner. This will establish a bond of mutual respect, which is the foundation of a good supervisor-employee relationship.

Integrity

It is also essential that the boss is a role model for the employee when it comes to the rules and regulations of the company, as this creates a culture of respect. Bosses should never violate rules in front of employees and flaunt the fact that they are able to do it because they are the boss. Supervisors should not praise an employee in a face-to-face meeting and later makes derogatory statements about the same employee to colleagues. The office gossip cycle will eventually come full circle and cost the supervisor the respect of the employee and any others who hear about the incident.

Listening

Many bosses feel communication means giving one-way instructions without feedback from the employee. This is not listening and does not make employees feel valued. A boss always reserves the right to not implement the idea, but be honest with the employee about why. The supervisor needs to listen empathetically to the employee, looking at the situation through the employee's eyes to be effective. It is important not to let personal issues or feelings interfere with listening to employees. There are already enough filters built into the workplace-noise, politics, favoritism, nepotism-that complicate communications. The employee can sense by body language and tone when they are listened to as opposed to being tolerated. An open lunch or town hall forums that allow employees to voice their thoughts can be effective in helping them feel valued, as long as they trust they can speak their thoughts freely. 

Leadership

The best bosses help employees be successful in their own right. It is important to remember that as a leader, you can delegate authority, but you can never delegate final responsibility. So when bosses give employees a hard time regarding results of the project, the boss needs to reflect back on what they didn't do to help people succeed.

As soon as a project is completed and submitted for review, the boss should conduct a comprehensive evaluation of all aspects of the project and meet with employees to debrief them on the positive and negative aspects of their work. As the supervisor develops trust in the employee, the projects can become more detailed and challenging, keeping the employee engaged. Some would say there is no time for this process in the real world.  However, when the high priority projects are needed, the trust will have already been established and the supervisor will be saving time by not micro-managing the employee, a win-win. Leadership begins with common sense regarding how to treat people, and enhanced by learning different techniques through training or coaching to help employees get where they need to be. 

Bernie Sparks is the president of 21st Century Leadership, a leadership consulting company, and is also executive director of Sparks Employment Group, a full service employment agency. He can be reached at 603-226-9675 or bernie at sparksemploymentgroup dot com.