3 Things Good Leaders Never Do

Bad Manager Behaviors According to Employees

By now we've all heard that "People don't quit bad jobs, they quit bad bosses" and it's true. Having a poor relationship with someone on your team often leads to them leaving for a better situation.

It's crucial to establish solid relationships with every member of your team by getting to know them, building a relationship and ultimately mutual trust.

We all know that to do this takes time and effort. What makes it even more challenging is that all the work you've done to build a relationship with your people can get wiped out by a single thoughtless mistake on your part.

No one said managing people was going to be easy.

Employees Surveyed About Boss Behavior

Recently the signage company, Sticker, and presentation materials company Signs.com surveyed more than 800 employees at different levels and industries across the United States about their bosses.

Respondents answered a wide range of questions about office etiquette and workplace behavior — and they ranked the 10 worst boss behaviors they had encountered.

Not surprisingly, Playing Favorites led the way in terms of the things managers do that employees dislike.

But there were many other behaviors that employees hated almost as much.

Have you unwittingly done any of them? Hopefully, not but it never hurts to brush up on things that can really undermine the relationships you have built with your team.

Sometimes in the heat of battle, we forget and say or do something that can have a lasting impact. So it’s essential to be aware of things that could hurt the relationships you've worked hard to build.

This isn't about being liked.

Whether you have one part-time employee or lead a company with hundreds of people on the payroll the skills of good leadership are universal. If you are a boss who is well liked and that's great but being liked has little impact on effectiveness.

To effectively lead you must be someone who is trusted, whose authority is respected and whose integrity is not questioned.

Yet the research shows that over half of employees in the workplace say they have quit a job because of a bad boss who does not have those qualities.

So what are leaders getting wrong?

The Worst of the Worst

Sadly, some of the egregious boss behaviors employees reported experiencing were things that eliminate them ever establishing trust or respect from the people they lead. What's more they could land a boss or their company (or both) in legal hot water. For example:

Putting personal items on a business expense account

Making passes at subordinates

Using drugs or alcohol at work.

I think we can all agree those are obvious examples of things one should never do so there's no need to discuss them further. However, there are less glaring transgressions on the list which can be easy mistakes to commit and easy to avoid as well.

Those I'm thinking of just so happen to be the top three from the survey.

So here are the top three bad boss behaviors and my suggestions on how to avoid them.

1. Playing Favorites and Lack of Transparency

This was the number one complaint in the survey, cited by 82 percent of men and 92 percent of women who responded.

It's no surprise there’s a gender disparity. We all know women often receive less equal treatment from some bosses who still think women can’t do the same or better job than thier male counterparts.

Putting gender aside, I think most people have an innate sense for detecting a lack of fairness. In fact, being aware of unequal treatment is a profound response in all living things. Even dogs, birds, and capuchin monkeys have been shown to react badly when they see a peer getting better treatment than themselves.

So negative reactions to unfair treatment is universal. However, favoritism can also be a matter of perception.

When you give an employee a promotion, raise, or plum assignment for what seems to you like perfectly logical reasons, it can still appear unfair to others. That makes being transparent about how you arrived at your decision crucial. It helps avoid the appearance that the process was stacked in someones favor.

You want to hire the best person for the job or assign the best person to that big project. You may have had a fair and open recruitment and gone through a rigorous selection process. Or maybe you have a special project with very specific needs and know the ideal person who can lead the project team.

But you must still avoid the appearance of favoritism for these sorts of decisions. Not doing so could undermine a fair and thoughtful plan and lead to resentment. That's why in any organizational move you insist on maximum transparency.

That could mean involving others in an important decision or it could simply be telling your team why you are doing things the way you are.

For example; you assign a big new client to a particular employee because they have a background in that industry, make sure you explain this to your whole team. Or if you give someone a temporary promotion to cover someone on extended leave you need to tell people why you chose them.

Even before that you should be regularly asking your employees what jobs or tasks they aspire to. That way you will know who to expect will want a particular role or assignment should the opportunity be there. And if someone gets passed over for a role they really want, make sure you clearly explain to them why.

Any organizational change or recruitment should have an announced beginning, a criterea for selection/decision, an invitation for any interested parties to provide input or to apply and an announcement when decisions are made and the process has concluded.

I once consulted at a firm whose practice was to hire people and start them without ever telling other employees it was happening. The leadership told me they thought people would be happy to see they were hiring more staff. Wrong. It's unsettling to existing staff, unfair to the new employee and inefficient.

Creating a culture of openness and transparency about how one can move up in responsibility (or even down or laterally) is crucial to establishing a positive, trustworthy work environment.

People can and will be disappointed they didn't get chosen for something they want to do. That's to be expected. But they must not feel like they never had a chance because you held all the cards confidential or you favor someone.

Always make it clear why you are making certain organizational changes, invite people to give their input, be open about what the process is to be considered, and when the decision has been made close the loop with an announcement to all concerned.

Another good practice, especially around hiring, is to bring others into the process so it’s not only you making the decision. This distributes the work and keeps things fair. It also gives some employees a chance to develop new skills regarding interviewing and first hand knowledge of the hiring process.

These best practices help everyone feel like they are part of the process as opposed to just being impacted by it. It gives those interested in an open position a fair shot to compete for it, and it send the message to everyone that favoritism is not a part of organizational decision making.

2. Informal Threats to Fire Employees.

If you’re considering terminating an employee, never talk about it with anyone on your team other than that individual. There should be a formal process for a termination discussion. Typically this begins with conversations between you and the employee.

After a period of time if improvement is not achieved then you will follow-up with them again. This time often adding a written letter and (where applicable) informing your HR department and your boss.

Every company has different details to this but the process in general looks similar.

It is important for both your own legal protection as well as the morale and culture of your company that you consistently follow a process when it comes to performance issues and the possibility of terminating someones employment.

There is always a tremendous amount of emotion that can develop around such situations so having a strict process, a clear path for the employee to fix shortcomings and keeping your emotions out of the mix is essential to mitigating the possibility of collateral damage.

Naturally all of this should take place only within the confines of your office, calmly and without emotion. I stress that the conversations should be calm and emotionless. You aren't there to scold that person. You are calmly explaining what you need from them, where they are falling short and how they can get back on track. No more and no less.

Emotions, at least from your side, must never be a part of the equation.

And shouting across a conference room “If you don’t get it done, don’t bother coming in tomorrow!” even if joking is never a good idea.

You may not intend comments like these to be taken seriously but sometimes they can be. Never take the chance that they are - just don't do it.

3. Not Keeping Performance Issues Confidential.

Similar to number two if an employee is falling short in some area that is a conversation you have in private with that employee. No one else needs to know about it but you and that individual. If they want to share it that is up to them but it should never come from you.

Early in my career, I had an employee who was not performing well. It was the first employee performance issue I had ever dealt with. I tried to be extra careful and follow a strict process. I did everything the way I was shown by my boss and HR.

Eventually this lead to me writing a disciplinary letter to the individual. What my organization called a Written Warning. This was one step away from that person being fired.

Two weeks after I delivered that Written Warning the employee came to me to say that they had been interviewing for a job in another state and they were submitting their resignation.

I breathed a sigh of relief that I would not have to fire the employee. This person had been with the company for some time and their performance had been good up until the last year. They were also very well liked throughout the organization. In fact, I really liked this person and didn't want to be the one to fire them.

The typical action required after any resignation was for the manager to send a department-wide email with an attachment which announced that the employee had resigned and what the manager intended to do about filling the position.

The email would simply say "See email attached regarding XXXXX XXXXXXXX". The attachment would explain the rest.

I happily and hastily wrote the resignation announcement letter and without thinking about it named the file similarly to the employee's disciplinary letter. You may be able to guess what happened next.

I inadvertently sent out this employee's disciplinary letter attached to the email instead of the announcement letter telling people he was leaving and wishing him well.

I cannot express to you how bad I felt about my mistake. Only minutes after I sent the department wide email someone replied and said to check my attachment. I immediately tried to recall the email but the damage had already been done.

I wanted to crawl under a rock and hide.

I went to the employee to explain my mistake and offer a sincere and heartfelt apology. Then I sent another email company-wide with the correct attachment and letting everyone know the error I made. The next day I gathered my whole team in a meeting with the employee present. I apologized to the person again so everyone knew I was genuinely sorry and how foolish I felt.

Fortunately for me, the employee was so excited about his new job which also moved him closer to his family that even this awful event could not dampen his happiness. The employee and I remain good friends to this day and still occasionally laugh about my boneheaded mistake.

At the time my boss quietly pulled me aside and talked with me about handling sensitive personnel matters and naming files. Both of which were totally fair. Though thankfully, he too was understanding.

I hope I never again make the mistake of calling out someone’s errors in front of others or failing to double check things when a persons reputation is at stake.

That’s the thing about bad boss behavior, it can result from thoughtlessness or rushing rather than being intentional.

What’s The Point?

Being careful to avoid thoughtless behaviors like these can make a big difference to how employees feel about you as a boss and as a result, how happy they are in their jobs.

Be attentive to employees' reactions to things your say or do, maintaining an open and transparent decision making process, and not playing favorites.

We all remember the Golden Rule from childhood; treat others as you want to be treated. Well I like to adjust that saying a bit and try to manage by the Platinum Rule:

Treat others as they wish to be treated

Try to think the way your team will react to something you do or how it will be percieved. As leaders we sometimes need to make decisions which are not popular. It comes with the territory. But many times those unpopular decisions can be better understood when you share the context and provide a level of transparency so your team sees why you made the decision that you did.

These are some good ways for establishing and building trust with your team.