A lot is said about strong leaders and the ideal character traits. In reality, being a great leader is immensely difficult and cut-throat environments within different organisations make it easier to steer into bad management practices. A number of managers are simply interested in ensuring that the required results are achieved in the necessary timeframe with little regard for anything else.
Being a strong manager requires no small degree of courage, as it takes guts to defend an employee from the line of fire or to stand up to something which is not right. To be fair, one cannot really blame such managers as most would be fearful for their job security. With that said, in this article we discuss a number of things good managers would not force their staff to do.
Lying to a customer or supplier
In some cases, certain decisions are taken which would irritate customers or suppliers by senior management. When such pressure to face these parties is on, employees may be forced to lie by their management. This would neither be fair nor reasonable.
Lying to other team members
Whilst it is unacceptable to force your employees to lie to an external party, making them bend the truth to their team members is worse on a whole new level. When unpopular decisions are taken, it is best to simply be straight rather than forcing your own employees to lie. If the lie is discovered, you will demotivate your team and destroy mutual trust.
Take the fall
Strong managers will admit to taking bad decisions. What they do not do is try pinning it on someone else. They don’t blame their staff when it goes wrong as ultimately they are the leaders and should be the ones who shoulder responsibility.
Micromanage
Worthy leaders do not micromanage or ask other employees to do so for them.
Discourage feedback
Managers who are incapable of creating a conducive environment which promotes honest feedback will not maximise on their team’s capacity.
Accepting undeserved bad reviews
Employees should never be forced into accepting an undeserved bad performance review, simply because their manager wants to promote someone else.
Not to take breaks
Whilst working without stop may be beneficial for the team’s results, eventually this will catch up with you. Strong managers are mature enough to understand that their employees need breaks and it is only with such moments of detachment, that they can continue delivering successful results.
Any other things strong managers would never do to their employees? Let us know in the comments section.
