I want to share a bit of a milestone today – this is the 100th edition of The New Leader’s Newsletter. We’re at nearly 1,200 highly engaged subscribers, with lots of you replying to me each week with feedback on the topic I cover, usually resonating a lot with the challenges that I’m sharing. I love hearing from you, so if you do have feedback or topics that you’d like me to cover in a future newsletter, just hit reply let me know.
Also, if you know anyone who is also a manager (or would like to be one), please do me a huge favour and forward this newsletter to them or send them to this page so that they can sign up themselves.
Right, onto the 100th edition of the newsletter…
In recent weeks, we’ve talked about how to retain your team and what to do if a team member wants to leave, but what can you actually do on a personal level that really makes your team want to leave? What are the common ways that managers lose respect?
I also want to say that all of the following things are often done by managers who are perfectly nice people. You don’t have to be a horrible, mean or unkind person to do these. Quite often, managers do these things because they don’t understand the negative impact of them or they are simply too busy.
The thing is, it kind of doesn’t matter. Sure, being a nice person makes a difference and can certainly buy you some time. But eventually, these actions will contribute towards a team member becoming disengaged, unmotivated and eventually, probably looking to leave.
1. Cancelling one to one meetings (or just not running them)
This is a big one and can have a huge negative impact on your team. If you’re not running them at all, then step one is to run them and if you need something to help you get going, use this simple one-on-one meeting agenda.
If you do run them, then you should do everything that you can to avoid cancelling them. Sometimes, things happen that are beyond your control and you’ll need to rearrange them which is fine. When this happens try to rearrange them for as soon you can for as close to the original time as possible.
By cancelling one-to-one meetings, you’re sending a message that your team members aren’t a priority to you.
Of course, there are going to be times when you are working on projects that genuinely are more urgent or time sensitive than a regular one-to-one meeting, but cancelling them (and not rearranging) on a regular basis shows that you really don’t see them as a priority at all.
2. Being late to meetings and calls
On a similar note, being late to meetings and calls can also send a signal to your team that they’re not a priority to you. Further to this, it’s just bad form and disrespectful to constantly be late to calls and meetings.
It also sets a bad example for your team, essentially telling them that it’s okay for them to be late for meetings and calls because their manager does it.
Being an effective manager and leader means that you set the standard for what great performance looks like. This includes relatively small, but important behaviours such as being on time for meetings.
3. You’re not available for quick chats
I’ll say here that I think it’s important for a manager to set boundaries and expectations so that your team isn’t coming to you every minute of every day with issues.
At the same time, going the opposite way is very damaging for your relationships with your team members. If you end up in a position where you are unavailable for a quick chat when your team needs you, then they will not only struggle more in their roles, but they will stop trying to come to you.
This leads to so many obvious problems but the less obvious problem that it creates for you is that it detaches you from the reality of what’s happening in your team on a day-to-day basis.
4. You’re not close enough to the day-to-day
A big challenge that managers face is how to balance being close enough to the day-to-day of your team’s work, whilst giving them the space and autonomy that they need to feel empowered.
A hidden cost of getting this wrong and being too far from the day-to-day is that you aren’t in a great position to give appropriate recognition for a job well done or constructive feedback when something can be improved.
If you run a large team, it can also lead to you not really understanding enough about someone’s job. When this happens, your team can pick up on it and it’s a bit demoralising when your own manager doesn’t “get” what you do or the value that you bring.
5. You talk openly about your own frustrations with the company
There are times when we all hit problems and get frustrated with our jobs or our own bosses. It’s fine.
But it’s not fine to share those frustrations with your team, especially when it comes to your peers and your bosses.
For some of your team, perhaps they may welcome the gossip and seeing behind the curtain of the “higher ups” of the company.
For those who are a bit smarter and experienced, they’ll realise that it’s not very professional of you as their manager to talk in this kind of way. They’ll lose some respect for you and wonder what else you talk openly about which you shouldn’t.
Avoid doing this at all costs and when decisions do get made by your bosses which you may not agree with, do your best to be diplomatic and work with your team to execute on the direction that’s been set, even if you don’t personally agree with it.
6. You don’t tackle hard problems
We’ve spoken before about how it’s important for a manager to own hard conversations and not avoid them.
Again, there is a hidden cost to this – your team notices and can lose respect for you as a manager.
So not only does avoiding a hard conversation and not tackling a problem lead to the fallout from the problem itself, it can also have a very negative effect on how your team perceives you as their manager.
For example, lets say that one of your team isn’t performing well and you don’t deal with it, their colleagues will definitely notice the underperformance AND they will notice that you’re not doing anything about it.
This can lead to the lack of respect mentioned above, along with them perhaps asking themselves why they try so hard to perform well when others are allowed to “get away” with underperformance.
7. You don’t do what you said you were going to do
Finally, this is a big one and whenever I see this, it really, really bothers me.
Do what you say you were going to do. Every time.
Now, of course, none of us are ever perfect and sometimes, things will slip through the net.
But you need to avoid becoming known as someone who doesn’t do what they said they would. This happens if you do it over and over again.
This goes to the heart of what accountability truly is, so you need to set the example as a leader and follow through when you promise to do something.
For example, if someone asks you what they need to do in order to get a promotion or a pay rise, then you say that you’ll go away and work on it – do not forget about it and never mention it again.
It’ll make you look bad, your team members will lose respect for you and potentially feel awkward about bringing it up again.
