Calling the boss H - Hitler, A - Arrogant, R - Rascal and I - Idiot caught everyone's attention in Naukri's TV commercial, would you do the same if given an opportunity? Even though it was just an advertisement, it did reflect the plight of employees in the IT industry. After receiving interesting comments on "10 reasons why people quit jobs in IT industry", we decided to take it a step further to analyze what exactly is going wrong. We conducted a survey to find out top ten mistakes that even good managers and bosses make.
So I am listing below the top ten mistakes which are very common amongst bosses.
1 - Micro-management
Sometimes when bosses assign work to an employee they don't completely trust that employee will be capable of completing the work. They underestimate the ability of the people they hire and end up offending the employee. "According to me, the number one mistake is, not effectively identifying the strengths of the employee, thereby micro managing or not delegating or not trusting the employee's judgment. A good boss is one who brings out the best in the employee," says Sharda Balaji, Founder of NovoJuris Services.
2 - Using improper mode of communication
Some bosses have this weird sense that since they are boss they should order people around and create a military kind of environment. They feel the stricter the things are the better things are organized. If an employee is late for some deadline, then the boss starts labeling the work or the employee himself.
3 - Leading through intimidation
This is one of the worst kind of mistake that bosses make. They feel that if an employee is threatened to work they will perform better. What the boss does not realize is that employee under such pressure end up losing interest in work and will meet the deadline just for the heck of it. Such employees then would only do what is asked from them and will never happily give hundred percent to do something good for the company.
4 - Lacking empathy for employee's situation
There are sometimes when employees do make excuses to take leave or when they come late. But not every reason is an excuse. Bosses end up thinking that their employees are always making excuses and do not showing any consideration for employee's situation
5 - Becoming inaccessible to your employees
An employee wants to contact his boss for something important but he is busy with other things and does not give any weightage to employee's problem and hence he is scared to approach his bosss.
"I have had some experiences at one of the company I worked with, where the manager was just not approachable and accessible. I could not expect any kind of guidance from him. It would not be wrong if I say that he was too busy caught with meetings (not accessible). He was also not approachable at the same time because of bad temperament and everything depended on his mood," said Prashant Honnavar, who is a Manager of HR at NextBiT Computing.
6 - Not providing guidance or motivating employees
An employee should always have something to look forward to. A good manager knows how to motivate employees to make them perform better but for this they have to spend some time with their team. In today's IT work environment many of the managers have no time to spend with the team due to day long meetings. As a result they miss out on understanding a team member's problem at work and providing the right support and solutions for the same. Failing to support and understanding a team member will lead to recipe of resignation. A manager should always have the practice of having one on one to know more about the team member, and then provide right feedback at the same time to motivate with the right attitude.
7 - Not providing a clear picture - Transparency
Many times work is assigned by bosses to employees without clearly telling them the complete picture. Boss should always maintain transparency with their employee to make them understand what exactly they are doing. "If bosses start informing their team about the correct scenarios and maintain transparency about a project, then the employees will work more willingly and meeting the deadline will no longer be a concern of the boss alone," said Juilee Joshi, who worked as a Technical Support analyst at BMC software.
8 - Insecurity about their post
Some bosses prefer to do things alone rather than taking teams help as they are unsecure that someone will provide better solution, and thus they get a sense of insecurity about their post. "There is something unique about Indian bosses. They get this superiority complex about their position and I fail to understand why. There are many extremely capable folks who like to remain in the 'individual contributors' role because they do not enjoy people management," said Balaji. "You can deal with an egoistic boss, a demanding boss, an impatient boss... but the worst kind is the one who is insecure."
9 - Trying to be friend as well as boss or showing partiality
This is the trickiest part of the boss-employee relationship. Some of the bosses try to maintain a perfect balance between professionalism and friendship but it does not always work well for the company. Employees might become lenient in submitting at deadline or boss might start expecting too much from employees since they are good friend as well.
Another part of this equation can be showing partiality or favoring certain employees over others which create negative vibes in the team.
10 - Making fake promises
In order to motivate employees many time managers make fake promises of promotion or goodies but when the time comes they just stall it. This de-motivates an employee a great deal and might backfire badly on the company.
There are many other mistakes that bosses commit but we felt that these are the top ten reasons. You may think differently and have your own reasons. We would like to hear the top mistakes that your boss makes. Do let us know.
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