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How you make your team members feel will determine how well they perform
we all have an emotional signature. It’s how we leave people feeling after they meet us. If we want people to be positive about us and, more W O R D S / K E V I N M U R R AY importantly, what we’re trying to achieve, we need to develop the skills that will enable us to have a really positive presence. This means being able to project warmth, being attentive and fully present, displaying compassion and empathy, being appreciative and praiseful, respectful of others, and most important of all, being a really good listener. Making other people feel good is easy with just a little practice. When you are warm and approachable, people are more likely to embrace your ideas. It can be as simple as making eye contact and flashing a smile. However, there are some behaviours managers unwittingly exhibit that are highly destructive to motivation, because they make people feel like they are not valued or respected. You only have to show that you have lost interest by looking at your smartphone or letting your eyes glaze over to make people feel like they don’t matter. Here’s a checklist of traits to avoid: strengths. This kind of behaviour will make every new assignment and every member of the team feel very unsafe. 1. Bad listeners are often bad managers – or worse, they either don’t care or are simply 5. Bad managers are disrespectful of everyone. They show contempt for their employees, their own bosses, and even their unaware of that fact. They regularly show customers. Disrespect is contagious, and very soon members of the employees that they have no interest in their input and perspectives and treat their views team will be disrespecting each other and disrespecting customers too, with contempt or disdain. Sadly, the worst with disastrous consequences. listeners often believe they are the best 6. Bad managers lack any charm and are cold and aloof. They are listeners; this is because they comprehend not interested in building relationships. things quickly and get impatient or switch off. They have no interest in the motivations This article is drawn Those are exactly the behaviours that make and personal lives of their team members. from research by Kevin others feel slighted. 7. Some managers are too goal- Murray CMgr CCMI for focused and pay little attention to his new book Charismatic 2. Managers who show little empathy or compassion for members of their team will work/life balance. As a result, their team Leadership: The skills you also have a hugely negative effect on morale members are constantly overworked can learn to motivate high performance in others and engagement. Even if a manager is simply with a high risk of burnout. expressionless while listening to troubles or 8. Worst of all, bad managers are (published by Kogan Page). not inclusive. They exclude people We originally published woes, this can be interpreted as uncaring. from critical conversations. They have it on our Knowledge & 3. Highly critical and vocal managers will seldom celebrate successes and will little tolerance for diversity. They prefer Insights hub, and it feels relentlessly and publicly interrogate failures, “birds of a feather” and are not interested just right for this edition’s never forgiving mistakes. They never offer in teams that are built on a diversity of focus on drawing out great second chances and can see no value in giving gender, race, culture or nationality. Even team performance. CMI the benefit of the doubt to others. if they have diverse teams, bad managers members can save 20% 4. Some managers will constantly search make little effort to ensure that everyone on Kevin’s book by using the code CMI20 is included in discussions or decisions. • for faults in employees and ignore their M AN AGER S .ORG.UK — 67
