A friend of mine recently tendered her resignation at what was her place of employment for over five years. She was there for the small, school-related company through a management shift and also flew to a foreign country to set up a ground-breaking subsidiary there. Throughout all this time, when they hired new management, she was overlooked.
She was their work horse. They didn’t want her out of the field, they wanted her to be a good cog and keep-a-workin.
She did so willingly because she loved the job and she was great at it.
The newest management was promoted from within and her toxic behavior was promoted along with her. They say that a bad hire strengthens the competition. Well, so does a bad promotion.
She became the type of manager who, after having a disagreement with an employee, would publicize her thoughts to colleagues and other subordinates behind the back of the one she had the disagreement with. Unfortunately, my friend saw some messages on a communal email account that the manager had sent around to those other colleagues and subordinates and the nature of the messages were both hurtful and untrue.
There’s an old saying of “Praise in public; critique in private.” So many managers seem to have this completely backwards. A manager’s job is to bring out the best in your employees so that they, in turn, will propel your company to great heights.
Let me repeat that since there are many who need to hear it again: A manager’s job is to bring out the best in your employees.
At the most basic level, if you do this, then you will have employees who respect you and want you to succeed as well. When you take their trust and throw it in the public stocks to be beaten and chastised, you become the enemy and every decision they make is tainted with that distrust.
Whether you are afraid that your employees will look better than you or that they will be promoted above you is irrelevant and ridiculous. Stop being a power-hungry micro-manager. Their success is your success and the sooner you can accept that, the easier your managerial career will be. You need to be seen as a cultivator of talent, not just a manager. Bring your employees out of their shells and they will respond in kind by increasing communication and trusting you to know how to do your job.
We, as cogs, live in fear of the yearly review. In today’s economy, we are often forced to accept less-than stellar reviews because companies are afraid of workers who appear to be doing too well. They might actually think they deserve *gasp* a raise. But think of all of the people out there who would gladly trade a raise for some respect and notoriety at work for a job well done. Be that person who acknowledges their contributions and they will see you as part of their team.
That is priceless in a world where corporate management sees us all as employee numbers instead of people.
