Sometimes Being Nice is Mean

As managers, a day without confrontation is a day of sunshine. Right? Instead of having one bad day and getting over it, continuing to avoid confrontation will just keep it in the background, sometimes for years. This is a recipe for a dysfunctional department with no discipline, lots of scheming and kvetching. It leaves employees hanging loose, not knowing where they stand. Worse, it leaves them to their own imagination. By avoiding an unpleasant conversation, you allow something worse, a festering problem that will grow. It may become the standard for that employee and it may spread to others. Employees know what the true measure of their performance is, and if one employee "gets away" with something, they will try to also. Short-term niceness is heartless in the long term. You doom the problem employee to non-improvement. Everyone realizes it is a deceptive peace and quiet. "In a knowledge economy, where work is more complex and interdependent, people need feedback more — what they particularly need feedback on are on things that are difficult to give: one's interpersonal style," says David Bradford, a lecturer at Stanford's Graduate School of Business. Your employees want to improve and continue learning. But if you don’t give meaningful feedback, they will stagnate. They may adjust their performance or they may go elsewhere. As one employee said, "(my boss) would dance around the aspects of my reports that needed improvement. … I never knew exactly where I stood." Bad news will not crush the employee if delivered tactfully, honestly, to the point and in a timely manner. Your time spent to "nip it in the bud" or train someone how to write the report right the first time, will pay dividends later. Those dividends will be in all the time not dealing with the issue and all the "real" work you will be able to do. Here are some points to assist you in helping your staff. For feedback on job skills, ask yourself, "Do I use generalities? Do I use a one-size fits all type of comment? Or, do I use meaningful detail to illustrate my points? Do I use a ‘what & why’ in my comments"

• Good comment: "I think that organizing the data by type of event order will have greater value. It will be easier to analyze where the peak usage times are and where we are under allocated in resources.
• Bad comment: "Pay greater attention to detail."

For feedback on interpersonal issues, ask yourself, "Do I focus on the behavior, not the employee? Am I responding in a timely manner?"

• Good comment: "When you interrupt people when they are talking, it is disrespectful and you miss important information."
• Bad comment: "You have a bad attitude."

Employers and employees are looking for people with more than leadership skills and qualities. Employees see in these qualities evidence of effective leaders whom they can also trust. Are your "go to" leadership skills as effective as you want them to be?

I offer a FREE, 30-minute consultation to provide a "trial run" for you. It will give you an opportunity to experience my style firsthand and see if it is a good fit for you. If you would like to explore how executive and life coaching can benefit you, here is how we get started: Contact me now for your complimentary consultation Telephone: 916 • 803•1494 E-mail: eal@EALCoaching.com

Article idea and quotes taken from: http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/careers/bal-bosses0303,0,2384662.story