Want to be a good boss? It’s not always as simple as producing good work, or even making your employees like you. Check out Paula’s wisdom about how to be a great boss (and spot a bad one before you get stuck with them!) – InPower Editors
I was fortunate to grow up working for one of the best leaders I’ve had the privilege of following—my dad. He ran a plastic injection molding company for 15 years, growing it from a two-machine operation that started in an old barn to a three-shift, 24/7 operation with more than 40 employees. He was kind, fair, and treated everyone with the utmost respect, from a CEO to the truck driver delivering parts or materials to the plant.
I wasn’t so lucky in my own career. Law school doesn’t train leaders, after all. It trains lawyers. My favorite leader in the law had so many of the qualities that my dad possessed, and I realized that good leadership is gold—and pretty rare.
Over the years, I have observed many friends and colleagues job hop—from firm to firm and from company to company. People crave good leadership, and when it doesn’t measure up, good employees leave and companies lose lots of money and valuable talent.
Here are five big reasons why people leave bad bosses, not companies:
They aren’t connected to their end user. People work so hard, yet so often they never get to meet the people directly impacted by their work. Companies need to place more emphasis on “end user” connection because the research in this area is nothing short of amazing. Here are some examples:
** Dr. Adam Grant and colleagues worked with call center employees at the University of Michigan. They had the fun task of cold calling alums to ask for money. One of the groups in his study actually got to meet a scholarship recipient and talk to him first hand. The scholarship recipient talked about how much the scholarship had changed his life, and he thanked the folks in the call center for their hard work. Once the call center workers realized how their work had an impact, they became motivated to work harder. In fact, their weekly revenue increased 400 percent (Grant et al., 2007)!
** When a patient’s photo was included in the file received by radiologists, they wrote 29 percent longer reports and made 46 percent more accurate diagnoses (Turner, Hadas-Halperin, & Raveh, 2008).
** When nurses assembling surgical kits met the health-care practitioners who would use their kits, the nurses worked 64 percent more minutes and made 15 percent fewer errors than those nurses who did not meet the “end user” (Belle, 2013).
They don’t trust their leaders. Trust is built and maintained with these four traits: (1) common ground (we have similar values and objectives), (2) predictability (I can predict your behavior), (3) consideration (you will take my needs into consideration before you act), and (4) forewarning (you will tell me before you act in a way that is not in my interests). Trust is also the foundation of high-quality work relationships. If leaders can’t build trust with their constituents, they will have disengaged followers at best and will find it very hard to keep and retain talent.
They have no autonomy. Autonomy is a fundamental basic human need, and it’s one of the pillars of self-determination theory (Baard, Deci & Ryan, 2004). Workers who have control over their projects, their time, and decisions tend to be powerfully motivated and engaged. A heavy diet of autonomy has also been shown to be a buffer against job burnout (Bakker, Demerouti, & Sanz-Vergel, 2014).
They don’t get any or enough feedback. The mantra at one law firm I worked at was, “No news is good news.” I only got feedback if I had done something wrong or it was time for my annual review. Feedback is actually an important job resource—an aspect of your job that helps you achieve your goals and stimulates growth and learning, and getting it in high enough doses can help prevent burnout (Bakker, Demerouti, & Euwema, 2005).
There are many tools and strategies leaders can use to build engagement at work and create a sustainable environment. People will think twice about leaving a workplace that is thriving.
Take charge of your career development to get the job that supports your work and your life. Check out the tools and resources in the InPower Coaching Career Center.
