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.

Three Leadership Behaviors That Increase Employees’ Happiness (and Productivity) at Work

A happy employee is a productive employee.  Studies have shown that happy people are more successful generally, experience increased employee satisfaction, earn higher pay throughout a career, and exhibit enhanced job performance. 

Specifically, research shows that compared to unhappy employees, those who are happy at work are:

·         Twice as productive;

·         Stay 5 times longer with an employer;

·         Are 6 times more energized;

·         Use 10 times less sick leave;

·         Are helpful to colleagues 33% more of the time;

·         Achieving 31% more of their goals;

·         Are 36% more motivated than their colleagues; and

·         Raise performance issues 46% more often.

Sounds like a manager’s dream!  So, what must leaders do to create “happier” (and more productive) workplaces?  The answers are simple and not necessarily easy.

1.            Help Employees Use Their Strengths; Don’t Focus on Weaknesses.

To create happier places for employees, help them focus on their strengths.  (This is good advice for yourself, too.)  Now, this seems a bit odd, since you’ve probably believed that bolstering weaknesses would make people “better”.  Although it might be counterintuitive, the research is clear. 

In a psychological study, bowlers were divided into groups.  After receiving instructions, the groups practiced bowling. Some groups were videotaped; others were not.  Of those videotaped, one group saw only positive things they did, and the other group saw only the negative.  Those who saw only the positive improved significantly over the rest of the bowlers (videotaped and not).  Among the most unskilled bowlers, those who saw only the positive videotapes improved significantly more than anyone (Cooperrider, 1990).  (Having second thoughts on how your company does performance evaluations and give feedback in general?)

What do I mean by a “strength”?  I don’t mean simply the activities and skills employees are good at, although that’s a start.  Marcus Buckingham takes “strengths” a step further when he says that strengths are the things that you are good at AND in which you lose yourself while doing them AND that energize you.

Have you ever been working on a project at home or work and looked up to see that much more time had passed than you realized?  Maybe you spent an evening dancing with friends, writing, painting, listening to others tell their stories . . . if the time passed quickly and you felt energized after doing it, you were in what is known as “flow”, and that activity could be a strength for you.

You can facilitate the process of employees discovering their strengths with resources, including Strengths Finder, Strengths Based Leadership and Buckingham’s own Stand Out.

Once an employee determines her strengths, help her find ways to do more work activities that them.  Build more of activities that use her strengths into the job or encourage an employee to apply for another job in your company that could incorporate more of her strengths.

So, while maintaining an adequate level of competence at something that isn’t a strength is usually required on the job, employees are better served (and by extrapolation so is the company) if they can do more work activities that showcase their strengths and get more feedback about how they are doing with respect to their strengths.

2.            Create a Sense of Belonging and Contribution

So, what type of work environment leads to happiness at work?  According to the iOpener Institute for People and Performance, happy employees reported a stronger correlation with the 5 C’s:

Contribution – feeling your efforts make a difference

Conviction – short-term motivation

Culture – feeling you “fit in” at work                                                                     

Commitment – long-term engagement

Confidence – belief in your own abilities

Thus, if employees do not perceive they are making a difference, fit in, or are having impact, chances are they are not happy.  And if they are not happy, they are not as productive as they could be.  These themes are echoed in the Gallup Organization’s Q12.

One way to increase employees’ sense of belonging and contribution is to allow them to use their strengths as noted above, which allows employees the opportunity to do what they do best, let’s employees know you care about them as a person, gives you the opportunity to talk about their progress at work, and lets them know you care about their skill and career development.

3.            Cross the Losada Line

The final tip to creating more happiness at work rests squarely on the shoulders of those in charge.  To increase happiness and productivity at work, count the ratio of positive to negative interaction you have with your employees.  According to research by Marcial Losada, supervisors need to have more positive interactions than negative ones with their employees.   Specifically, a phenomenon known as the “Losada Line” says you must have 2.9013 positive interactions to every negative interaction you’re your employees to make your team moderately successful.  To lead teams to their very best work, you need to raise that ratio to 6 to 1! (Losada, 1999).  How many positive interactions or communications have you given your employees or received from your manager lately?  See.  Not as easy as it sounds . . . especially if your motto has been “no news is good news”.

What small thing can you start doing today that will increase your employees’ happiness at work?

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.

Employee Recognition for the "No Nonsense" Boss

You know who you are.  You grew up in a family where no news was good news.  When your parents had a conversation with you, it meant you had screwed up.  You’re focused on work, not that you don’t like people. You do.   You just like them better when they are working.  While you make pleasant conversation with others from time to time, it drives you nuts or at least makes you a bit antsy, and you feel it’s a waste of your time if the chit chat goes beyond 5 minutes.

Now, you’re in charge of others.  Maybe you have your own company, you’re a CEO of a large company, or you’re in charge of a department or a small work crew.  Doesn’t matter.  You’re now faced with getting the most out of others, and the concept of employee recognition or appreciation comes up.  The idea alone makes you crazy.  Employee appreciation.  After all, employees are getting paid to do their jobs.  You think, “Why should you have to gush all over them?  Geez.  Grow up, employees.  This is the adult world.  Not everyone gets a trophy for showing up to work.”

Granted, it would be a lot easier if everyone could simply show up, hit their marks, and know in their heart of hearts that they did a good job . . . unless you say something to them.  But that’s not the way the world works.  Employees’ need to belong and to feel good about themselves and that means they need you to recognize their efforts from time to time.

Yes, some recognition programs miss the mark.  They put too much emphasis on the token given to the employee (a watch, a trophy, a bonus, etc.) than on the meaning and sentiment behind the token.  (How many of you have commemorative service pins that you don’t want and don’t know what to do with?)  If a program stresses form (getting something) over function (appreciation), then the recognition program is the problem and needs to be revamped or dismantled altogether.

Here’s what we know about employee appreciation:

1.            Performance is higher in groups where the leader shows more encouragement.  In fact, a survey showed that 95% of those survey agreed with the statement, “I get a lot of satisfaction knowing I've done a good job.”  Kepner-Tregoe (1995)

This indicates that to get the best performance out of employees, employees want and need to hear that you recognize their efforts and to know that you were pleased with their work.  It doesn’t mean you have to throw a party or buy them expensive presents each time they do something right.  It simply means you need to acknowledge the efforts.  How about a simple thank you?

2.            Teams with managers who were encouraging and offered praise performed 31% better than teams that did not.  Greenberg, M. H., & Arakawa, D. (2006).

Again, recognizing efforts and telling employees that they are doing well and that you appreciate their efforts is all that is needed.  The research doesn’t say you need to spend a ton of money making a big deal out of every success or breakthrough.

3.            Deliberate and specific recognition/praise is more motivating than money. Deci, E. L. (1996)

When you show your appreciation, be deliberate in recognizing employees and be specific about what it was they did so well and why it mattered to the company.  Don't say only, “Thank you.”  Instead say, “Thanks for the long hours and hard work you put into the ABC project.  Because of your efforts, we landed the account.”

So, as much as it irks you to recognize when employees get it right, it can pay off big for them individually.  Consequently, sincerely saying a specific “thank you” will pay off big for your company, department, or work crew.  It’s not the fancy recognition program you design or the stuff you give people; it’s the recognition and appreciation, stupid.