Two Common Mistakes That Bad Managers Make

If you want to be a good manager, it is helpful to know the most visible signs of a bad manager and avoid them. This article is not exhaustive, nor claims to be, but points out two simple mistakes that reduce the esteem of a manager in the eyes of colleagues or subordinates, and surprisingly, most of us ignore the consequences of these acts when applied to ourselves.

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Regularly Being Absent When Office Hours End

While your projects may spread over weeks, months, or years, it is prudent to understand that each workday at an office has its own rhythm and protocols. For several reasons, which might be either personal or work related, employees prefer to consult their bosses at the end of the day after the day's work is done. To find the superior to be absent on a regular basis at closing time is a major irritant and hampers both workflow as well as channels of communication. Being present throughout the day has value, but regularly leaving office before your employees do will make you lose command, as well as putting you out of touch with things that require your attention. The result is that your employees will start losing faith in you and see you as unreliable when it comes to discussing personal matters or difficulties. Such feelings can quickly turn to disdain and insubordination, and can be made worse by competing colleagues who stay late and listen to their employees.

Remember that your good intentions do not matter, but the fact that as a rule of thumb, employees will talk about their personal difficulties or challenges usually at the end of a workday, and not at the beginning or in the middle of the day's work. Every good manager needs to consider this fact and behave accordingly.

Allowing Encouragement to Translate into Favoritism

Encouragement of employees is a useful and essential tool of management. However, the fact that encouragement and praise usually proves effective and provides immediate results causes many managers to develop the bad habit of using encouragement as a universal solution regardless of the situation at hand.

It is natural for good managers to empathize with newcomers and workers who lag behind and try to encourage them to boost productivity. Most of the time it yields results, and sometimes it does not. However, it is not uncommon to feel overwhelmed when you find a poor worker catching up on things upon encouragement. And it is also not uncommon to heap praises upon somebody who has just ceased being a problem.

Though it truly is a matter of personal achievement for any manager to be able to turn a poor worker into a good worker, it is not something you should get carried away in. Many managers make the mistake of publicly showering excessive praise on a poor worker who has just graduated to the status of an average worker. To other hardworking professionals in the same workspace, such outbursts by a manager over a decidedly poor worker is often taken as a sign of favoritism, and quite commonly, it does turn into favoritism since the newly stabilized worker becomes a visible representation of the manager's achievement.

Praises and incentives for outstanding work increases employee morale and helps to retain employees. However, favoritism or undeserving praise (as far as other colleagues of the praise recipient are concerned) can quickly mess up a workplace and make you lose the faith of hardworking professionals who never need encouragement to carry their weight.


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