8 Reasons Your Employees Want to Break Up With You

February is the month we think about our relationships. While you might not go so far as to call them your “valentines”, do you have good relationships with your employees? Having good relationships with your employees increases productivity and retention of top talent. Leaders who don’t foster good relationships with employees will find themselves rejected and abandoned like a jilted lover.

Beware of these eight reasons your employees might want to break up with you:

1. You’re Incompetent. Employees want a competent leader who knows how to communicate, sets clear expectations, addresses all relevant issues (even tough ones), gets results, and holds everyone accountable. In short, they want a good leader. If you’re not at least average in these areas, you’ll see higher than average employee turnover rates for your industry as employees say, “It’s just not working for me anymore."

2. You’re Not Credible. (Note: there is a difference between lacking credibility and being “incredible”.) Employees want a leader who says what she means, means what she says, and does what she says she’s going to do. These admired leaders have character and integrity. Employees notice when a leader's conduct is inconsistent with her stated values and when promises are broken. In that situation, employees will dump you for someone else as soon as something better comes along.

3. You’re Not Personally Committed to the Organization’s Mission and Goals. While you ask your direct reports and other employees to give their "all" at work, do you put the effort and time into achieving your company’s goals? As a role model in your organization, you of all people should be working hard. To do this, use your time wisely and put in the planning it takes to fulfill the requirements of your leadership role. Otherwise, your employees will break it off saying, “I’m not saying it’s you; but I know it’s not me.”

4. You’re Rigid or Stuck. While “resilience” might be an over-used, trendy buzzword right now, your employees don’t want to be involved with a boss who can’t roll with the punches. Employees want a leader who can bounce back from failure, who can cope with the disappointment of an unrealized goal, while renewing their sense of hope and re-energizing them as the company gets back on track. If you can’t bounce back when you fall, your employees will break it off and find someone else they can admire on this score.

5. You Are Focused On Your Own Needs First. Do you seek personal ambition over putting the needs of the company first? When you egocentrically put your own desires and ambitions first, your employees understand that you are simply using them to enhance your own status instead of the company's brand. Employees provide better value to customers when they feel they matter and their leaders care about their well-being. If you’re a “user”, employees will kick you (and your company) to the curb.

6. You Are Not Committed to Employee Success. Do you think your employees should just know what to do with little guidance from you? Employees want to know how they can improve. A good leader understands that talent must be continually developed for the good of the organization. Leaders who don’t, lose bench strength quickly. Without giving specific and frequent feedback and without supporting employees to gain skills, you might just miss out on some of the best employees you could have ever asked for. They will be the “ones that got away”.

7. You Don’t Admit to Your Mistakes. Can you admit when you are wrong? Or do you stubbornly insist on being right? Leaders who admit to their mistakes show humility and courage and emphasize that taking risks may not always lead to the ideal outcome – and that’s OK because you learn something along the way. Leaders who admit their mistakes teach employees that failure is a part of trying and can be more helpful than success.

8. You Need to be Liked Instead of Respected. This is the romantic equivalent of being co-dependent. These leaders curry favor with employees in the hopes of making a friend at the expense of their duty to do what’s right for the company. Of course, it’s ideal to be both liked and respected, but if you have to choose one, choose respect. Employees will see you as unbiased and consistent (fair) if you do. And you’ll respect yourself in the morning.


WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR NEWSLETTER, BLOG OR WEBSITE? You can, as long as you include this information with it: Beth Strathman is the Executive Coach for senior leaders who want to get focused and get results. Learn more about her company Firebrand Consulting at: www.bethstrathman.com.

The Personally Productive Leader

You’re smart.  You’re hard-working.  You have a good business model.  You have the necessary resources and good employees.  Yet, you feel as though you get nothing done during the day.  Most of the time, you feel off balance and pulled in a hundred different directions.   Your business isn’t necessarily in trouble, yet you spend more time than you’re comfortable with, feeling unfocused and wondering if you will get everything done.

When looking to increase business productivity, many leaders often look at the structure of their business, employee performance and engagement, and work processes.   And these are excellent places to tweak to make sure the business is hitting on all cylinders.  However, an often-overlooked productivity leak can be the leader’s own personal productivity. You typically aren’t taught that in school.

Leaders underestimate the impact they have on their employees, not realizing that their personalities, habits, values, and focus radiate throughout their businesses or areas of responsibility.  For this reason, any productivity gains from improving company-wide work processes and employee performance can be hampered by a leader who hasn’t examined his own ability to be more personally productive.

Being personally productive doesn’t mean you need to be pitching in and doing the work that is assigned to and more appropriately done by others.  Rather, it requires you to do your own work as leader effectively.  To maximize your personal leadership productivity, start with these three ideas:

1.            Design your calendar to reflect business priorities.  Your business purpose and current goals should be reflected in the strategic plan.  In turn, the strategic goals and priorities must be intentionally reflected in your weekly calendar.  If your company is aiming to increase revenues by 10% over at 24-month period, you must schedule appropriate weekly activities for yourself to make sure you are doing your part to achieve that goal.  Do you need to recognize employees who are going the extra mile toward the company goals?  Do you need to meet with management to monitor progress toward the overall goal?  Do you need to work with a team to help them determine how work processes can be improved to help achieve the goal? 

It seems such a simple concept.  Yet most leaders get caught up in the daily swirl of “administrivia”, losing track of the next steps they must do or follow up on to keep the larger goals and initiatives moving forward.

Be sure to consciously carve out 10-12 hours per week for activities that further important business goals.  The remaining hours of your weekly calendar will reflect the routine activities that normally consume your time – meetings, phone calls, email, keeping up on industry trends, reviewing financials, board business, meeting with key customers, processing through the information that lands in your office, etc.

2.            Create a personal workflow system.  Consciously and intentionally dedicate time everyday to process through the information coming into your office via your physical inbox and email.  Prioritize items to do, again, based on your strategic plan. 

3.            Delegate more.  Many leaders fail to fully utilize their administrative assistants and other professionals in their businesses.  Delegating to others will free up time for you and give those who have the skills and expertise opportunities to take on work that can help them develop.  Delegate it’s not critical that you do it and if it’s appropriate work and responsibility level for the position you want to delegate it to.

Many leaders find that putting these simple steps in place keeps their minds clearer and more focused and reduces stress by creating a support structure that helps them keep their most important work activities in perspective.