6 Ways You Might Show Your Employees that They’re Not Worth Your Time!
Our leadership team had a terrific coaching session with our mentor Rob recently. We talked about the negative impact of leaders ignoring their people. He mentioned that when a relationship gets so broken down, the leader may actually give team members the silent treatment and start avoiding them altogether. What a terrible feeling for the team member trying to navigate their job!
This made me pause and really think about how our actions communicate to our employees that they’re not worth our time. See if any of these ring true for you as a leader or if you’ve experienced this yourself.
1. Constant Rescheduling
Nothing says “you’re not important to me” like consistently bailing on meetings. Obviously, there are some situations in which you’ll need to reschedule. Recently I signed up for a six-week training course. The team was gracious enough to reschedule my coaching with them only to have the course get cancelled. It was a bit of a palaver to reschedule but this is the exception, not the norm. Do you treat your one-on-ones with your team as sacred time or do you reschedule when you’re running late on a project or overloaded with work? I totally get it. It can be difficult to manage a tight schedule and needle-moving priorities but one-on-one time with our people should be consistent and treated as a priority.
2. Don’t Ask for Their Opinion
In the early stages of my leadership journey, I rarely asked anyone for their opinions. I knew what I wanted, I knew the outcome was clear in my mind and, rather than collaborating, I simply asked people to execute. There’s a fine line between leading the charge and bulldozing! This is something I’ve been humbled enough to realize that I’ve done in the past and sincerely work diligently to avoid as I work with my team now. In fact, we’re encouraging team members to stretch their courage muscle. If nine people at the table love an idea and you think it’s ridiculous or you think the idea will derail long term goals, speak up! Let us know what we’re not seeing!
3. Don’t Look Up From Our Work When They Come in to Our Office
Remember the good ol’ days when we were in the office with our teams?! Well, those days will return and people will come to us for support or direction. When your team member is standing in your doorframe, you have a choice to either stop what you’re doing, stand and give them your undivided attention, or continue typing and murmur one-word answers. Guilty as charged! I used to be so cold because I didn’t want any confusion about it. I was irritated and wanted to get back to work! I remedied this by adjusting my “open door policy” to times when I was actually available, which made me more approachable and happier to help!
4. Edit Feedback
When we’re not clear with our people, we actually do more damage than good. I’m a work in progress here. I want to be kind; I want to be nice, but as Brene Brown says, “Clear is kind. Unclear is unkind.” Remember that when you’re giving feedback. I’m not suggesting you be rude or sarcastic, but I am recommending firm, clear feedback and expectations to clarify next action steps and boundaries. When people leave a courageous conversation fully aware of a behaviour that needs correcting, they feel empowered to do so and level-up their game and contributions. Leave the sugar-coating to your COVID baking sprees. 😉
5. The Silent Treatment!
We hate this in relationships, don’t we? Sometimes we even say things that are obnoxious or untrue just to grab our partner’s attention because the silent treatment is a slow death! This is true for our team members as well. When we stop giving feedback as leaders, we communicate that “you’re not even worth my breath!” Stop and think about that. The repercussions are heart-breaking. If you’ve been holding back having a difficult conversation, check out our blog here for tips but don’t avoid it!
https://www.growwithsigmau.com/blog/having-courageous-conversations-with-your-team
6. Don’t Care Enough to Challenge Them to Up Their Game
When we care about the success of our team members, we want to see them grow and stretch outside of their comfort zones. We want them to take on challenges that are just outside of their current skill level because we see potential for excellence in them. Are there members on your team that you know you haven’t invested in lately? Are you accepting mediocre work and not calling them out on it? Calling it out and coming from a place of pure curiosity about the quality of their work will open the dialogue for change. Perhaps they literally submitted lack luster work to see if you even noticed! Care enough to challenge your people! Get them involved in special projects. If they aren’t ready to tackle a strategic rock on their own, increase their level of responsibility and have them partner with the team lead.
Make your team members a priority and genuinely care about their success. Confront behaviour that needs addressing and challenge them to impress you with their next level of contribution! As always, we would love your feedback on other ways to ensure that employees never feel ignored or isolated. Feel free to share below!
