2015-05-08 04:06:50
The real reason talented people leave great jobs? Usually, it s the boss.
Managers can make or break a workplace experience both with their behaviour
and what they say aloud. Of course, the things they don t do are equally
problematic, such as not providing training and not tapping the most-qualified
person for a promotion. Several LinkedIn Influencers weighed in on these topics
this week. Here is what two of them had to say:
Brian de Haaff, chief executive officer at Aha!
The way a boss communicates with his or her team is crucial. While effective
communication is definitely a two-way street the bar should actually be set
higher for managers and other leaders, who should recognise their
responsibility to model appropriate conduct in the workplace, wrote de Haaff
in his post Three Things Smart Bosses Never Tell Employees.
Managers and leaders should set a positive example by thinking before speaking
and choosing their words wisely, he wrote, offering three things a smart boss
should never say.
Guess what I heard? Sometimes it can be lonely at the top, and managers may
trade gossip with their co-workers because they want to be buddies. However,
there is no room for gossip in the workplace even if it builds camaraderie, de
Haaff wrote. Rumour-mongering tears down the trust that you are trying to
establish with your team and shows an overall lack of maturity.
What s up with Adam? There may be rare times when a manager may seek
information about an employee out of genuine concern for the person s welfare
but when you fish for information to satisfy your own personal curiosity, you
put the person's co-workers in the awkward position of breaking a confidence.
This kind of behaviour demonstrates weak leadership, wrote de Haaff.
I don t want to hear it! When you say this phrase, you close your mind to the
possibility that you might actually be wrong and the other person may be right,
he wrote. This gut-level reaction to bad news shuts down all communication
and sends a clear message that you are unapproachable and inflexible.
Michelle M Smith, vice president of marketing at OC Tanner
What could be more essential to organisational success and the corporate
bottom line than talent? asks Smith in her post How to Lose Your Best
Employees in 10 Easy Steps. Yet many people continue to be marginalised and
neglected.
No corporate function today lags behind as dramatically as how we manage the
employees for which we are responsible, Smith wrote, pointing to research by a
business school professor.
If companies want to lose their best people, they ll keep doing these 10 things
that drive the brightest and most high-potential people away, she wrote. Among
them:
Put jerks into management. Reward the old-fashioned, autocratic style that
stifles unorthodox, creative thinking and feels threatened by fresh ideas,
energy and dynamism, Smith wrote.
Measure hours, not results. Keep an expensive cadre of stern enforcers busy
with policing everybody, she wrote. Don t trust your talent to use their time
wisely. Crack down on social media. Forbid personal activities during the
workday, even as you continue to expect work to be conducted over the weekend
as well.
Don t bother with training. Instead, have your workers do the same tasks over
and over in the very same way, she wrote.
Bungle the teams. Avoid mixing generations and skill sets, instead grouping
like with like and producing stale and predictable solutions that are safe and
excite no one, Smith wrote.