Assessments

Bad Bosses Can Be Good People with Poor Skills

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Today’s bosses are getting a bad rap. They are the number one reason employees cite for leaving their employers. The truth is, many people leave due to poor job fit, work ethic and work discipline, along with illusions about how fast they should be advancing in their jobs or careers.

As a boss, you may believe you have the wrong employees. However, it’s critical to your career, now and in the future, to learn about yourself and how you can improve your management skills: performance, people and profit. Usually when you do this, you will be surprised to find you have great employees. If you continue to believe you don’t have great employees, you will eventually discover you are in the wrong job!

Important Note: Being a good person does not mean you are a good boss!

Transform Poor Skills Into Good Ones

-Performance Effectiveness. As a boss, you may falsely believe that if your employees like you, they will perform at higher levels. It’s a myth! The truth is, as a respected boss (not necessarily a well-liked boss), you become fearless about making the right decisions, finding needed resources and encouraging employee initiatives. While you may not be everyone’s favorite boss, your employees can count on you to develop them into great contributors who produce unprecedented results. They will value you as a leader.

-Great Relationships. Belief in yourself, your teams and your management peers is critical, but believing blindly can create problems. Use objective data to guide you in developing and coaching your people with laser-like skills to ensure job fit. Remember to listen more than talk. When you value others, their ideas and efforts, people will respect and like you as a leader.

-Attention to the Bottom Line. Your boss and top management team will provide important industry insights and rely on your technical and people skills to design, plan and execute new business practices. It’s important for you to be able to work with and through your team profitably to achieve the intended results. It will determine your fate as a good boss now and in the future.

Boss Development Is Required Now

Note: You may see yourself or one of your employees as having “bad boss” traits. It’s critical to act now to fix them. The longer bad habits continue, the harder it is to transform them into effective ones.

-First, hire an executive coach to work through the challenges and perceptions for an extended period of time. There are no quick fixes! Take a qualified assessment to help you see the connection between your work habits and attitudes and how they conflict with good boss practices. Participate in a qualified 360-degree feedback to better understand the workability of your management style based on objective feedback from your boss, peers and direct reports.

-Second, review the information provided by both assessments with your executive coach and create a strategic plan to develop skills you are not using, acquire skills you do not have and become effective when handling the challenges, conflicts and changes required of any boss. Remember, you can build on strengths. You cannot build on weaknesses.

-Third, implement the strategic plan you just created with your coach and stay focused. Being a good boss is not an easy career path. However, it can be really fun and highly rewarding.While no one expects you to be perfect, it’s important you transform your “bad boss” reputation before it derails you and your career options.

©Jeannette Seibly, 2017-2018

Need a speaker or facilitator to successfully address company issues? As a future leader, are you ready to develop the key skills now? Contact Jeannette Seibly. She will provide confidential, laser-focused coaching that works! 

Jeannette Seibly has been called a catalyst. She is celebrating 25 years as a business coach, advisor and consultant who guides her clients to achieve unprecedented results. Remember, everyone can be a leader, with or without the title. First, you must step up! Check out her website, or contact Jeannette for a preliminary confidential conversation.

Do You Sound Like a Great Boss?

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Too often words come out of our mouths that we vowed we would never say. And, to make matters worse, our tone sounds harsh or critical. Believe it or not, as bosses, we often sound like our parents did when growing up. Imagine sounding like our critical parents when we speak to our employees. Yikes!

Stop sounding like a critical parent to your adult employees.

Why is this Important?

Employees leave their employers because of their boss! It’s the #1 reason employees seek other opportunities. They may tell their former employers it’s due to lack of pay, bennies, immediate opportunities and other perks. In truth, it’s actually about lack of respect, tone of voice, words used, promises not kept, and promotions that never happened. Rightly or wrongly, they blame the boss!

Good News – Bad News

First, the Good News. Yes, you can do this! Before receiving that coveted promotion or job (or immediately after), develop the right supervisory communication skills. Becoming a great boss is developed through taking responsibility for your attitudes, beliefs, and communication abilities. It helps you to elicit the best from your employees, boss, vendors and clients!

Second, the Bad News (best to get this out of the way early in the article). You may not have the interest in becoming a great boss. In that case, it won’t matter how much training and development is provided, you will fail to use it! Instead, find other positions without people management responsibilities at the pay scale you desire now. Otherwise, you will eventually find yourself unemployable. (Don’t forget, to excel in most professions, you will still need to develop great communication skills.)

9 Ways to Sound like a Great Boss

1.It’s an Inside Job. It requires being responsible for and setting aside your inner judgments and beliefs of how people should think, act, talk, dress … ad nauseam. Remember, simply using the right words or jargon will not prevent others from “hearing” what you really believe or think about them (think, over 80% of communication is non-verbal)!

2.Influence. Instead of telling others what to do, how to do it, and using a commanding tone of instruction, learn to influence others. Engage them by sharing the bigger picture, and allow them to handle the details without being micro-managed.

3.Listen! Develop a positive attitude and authentic belief that others have great solutions! Listen and learn from others’ ideas, incorporate them, and give each person credit!

4.Treat People Right. Treat people with respect by developing “boss smarts.” Hang around other managers that have a great track record of interacting well with their employees. Take away insights that will work for you and help you respect others. (Hint, understand you will never be just like them!)

5.Understand Your People. Use qualified assessment tools to understand “why” employees do what they do. They provide incredibly accurate insights and turn you into a laser-like coach that your employees value. Understanding your people will have them enjoy coming to work each day!

6.Understand Your Style. Use qualified assessment and 360-degree feedback tools to help understand your style now that you are a manager. Review the feedback with your coach, mentor and employees to uncover actual strengths and weaknesses, and develop methods to help you become a more effective boss. (Most important: never hold their comments against them.)

7.Word Choice. The words and tone of voice of you use tell a much deeper story than you are aware of. Work with an experienced executive coach or licensed therapist to role-play your choice of words in upcoming situations, and how to talk with others when describing challenges and opportunities. Your tone of voice will naturally change as you become a more confident communicator.

8.Journal for Clarity. This is a great way to see, in black and white, your thoughts about people and/or situations. It gives you a chance to work through complex issues in a more objective and helpful manner. Then, shred. NEVER send a letter spewing your upsets no matter how justified you believe you are.

9.Confidence. Often, your inner-most and deepest fear is that you are fraud and everyone is going to find out.

Being a great boss requires an awareness of how your beliefs, words and tone of voice impact others. Using the above techniques will help you communicate in a manner that elicits the best from your employees and others.

©Jeannette Seibly, 2017

What are you waiting for? In less than 30 days, Q1 will come to an end! The good news is, there is still time to create a great 2017. The bad news is, it won’t happen unless you get into focused action. Contact Jeannette Seibly now. She will coach you on how to move forward faster to achieve your 2017 goals! The clock is ticking … contact her now.

Jeannette Seibly has been a business advisor and executive coach for 24 years; along the way she’s guided the creation of three millionaires. She is laser sharp at identifying the leverage points that will take a business and its team to the next level of performance and success. She also has extensive experience developing great bosses! Check out her website , or contact Jeannette for a free, confidential conversation.