3 minute read
Are you the problem?
by CMI_
How you make your team members feel will determine how well they perform
WORDS / KEVIN MURRAY
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 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 glazeover to make people feel like they don’t matter.
Here’s a checklist of traits to avoid:
1. Bad listeners are often bad managers – or worse, they either don’t care or are simply unaware of that fact. They regularly show employees that they have no interest in their input and perspectives and treat their views with contempt or disdain. Sadly, the worst listeners often believe they are the best listeners; this is because they comprehend things quickly and get impatient or switch off. Those are exactly the behaviours that make others feel slighted.
2. Managers who show little empathy or compassion for members of their team will also have a hugely negative effect on morale and engagement. Even if a manager is simply expressionless while listening to troubles or woes, this can be interpreted as uncaring.
3. Highly critical and vocal managers will seldom celebrate successes and will relentlessly and publicly interrogate failures, never forgiving mistakes. They never offer second chances and can see no value in giving the benefit of the doubt to others.
4. Some managers will constantly search for faults in employees and ignore their strengths. This kind of behaviour will make every new assignment and every member of the team feel very unsafe.
5. Bad managers are disrespectful of everyone. They show contempt for their employees, their own bosses, and even their customers. Disrespect is contagious, and very soon members of the team will be disrespecting each other and disrespecting customers too, with disastrous consequences.
6. Bad managers lack any charm and are cold and aloof. They arenot interested in building relationships. They have no interest in the motivations and personal lives of their team members.
7. Some managers are too goalfocused and pay little attention to work/life balance. As a result, their team members are constantly overworked with a high risk of burnout.
8. Worst of all, bad managers are not inclusive. They exclude people from critical conversations. They have little tolerance for diversity. They prefer “birds of a feather” and are not interested in teams that are built on a diversity of gender, race, culture or nationality. Even if they have diverse teams, bad managers make little effort to ensure that everyone is included in discussions or decisions.
