A perfect storm has the workplace under siege, and its destruction is caused, in part, by management. Choking the workplace is employee dissatisfaction with management. Strategy firm Root found in their research that 68 percent of survey respondents believed managers are more interested in their own success than inspiring their direct reports. It’s no surprise that TellYourBoss.com found that 65 percent of employees in their study would prefer a new boss over a pay increase.
It’s not just management malaise at the middle-layer of the hierarchy troubling organizations. It’s also low trust in organizations and senior management. A 2012 Towers Watson study found that less than half of employees believed senior managers cared about employee well-being.
The discontent in the workplace is largely due to symptoms of destructive management. Destructive management is like a disease, draining people and infecting the whole workplace. The symptoms come from outdated beliefs about the role a manager plays at work.
What we need is a way to shift the trend and focus on leadership practices that promote workplace optimism.
Before listing the symptoms of destructive management and how to counteract them, let’s first define workplace optimism. It’s the way the workplace feels. It gives hope to employees that good things will come from their hard work. Workplace optimism is an antidote to the troubles companies face today.
Symptoms of destructive management
- Symptom 1: Blind Impact. This is when a manager is unaware of how his actions, attitude and words impact others. He consistently underestimates people’s value.
- Symptom 2: Antisocial Leadership. An antisocial leader doesn’t have the skills to encourage, build and evolve a community of people united by a shared purpose.
- Symptom 3: Chronic Change Resistance. This is a manager’s resistance to adapt to change, initiate it or support it.
- Symptom 4: Profit Myopia. Managers with this symptom habitually look to profit as the best measure of success. These managers don’t know of other ways to measure their team’s or the company’s impact on those whom they serve.
- Symptom 5: Constipated Inspiration. This symptom infects a manager’s style and prevents him from learning what and how to inspire his team.
- Symptom 6: Silo Syndrome. A manager afflicted with silo syndrome cannot see beyond his immediate responsibilities and has no awareness of the impacts his decisions have on others.
Antidotes to overcome destructive management
The keys to overcoming destructive management is to double down on how you relate to people and personally focusing on your leadership style. With these two items in mind, here are some specific actions you can take to create workplace optimism.
- Magnify meaning
Three areas of meaning are important to people: social, work, and personal. Help your employees find meaning in the relationships they have and develop in their work (social). Connect your employees’ work to a bigger picture (work). We all want to be part of something bigger than ourselves. Talk with your employees about what is meaningful to them in their careers and in life (personal).
- Know your impact
Your leadership style has the greatest impact on your employees’ work experience. Spend time talking with a trusted few to learn how your style enables and creates barriers to performance.
- Increase connection
As human beings, we crave connection with others. We’re social animals. Develop ways to intentionally help your team connect. A great tool is HopeLab’s Check-in Cards.
While organizations struggle with finding ways to counter the influences of destructive management practices, you can act and improve your team’s work environments. The three actions above can position you to shift your team’s work environment to be energizing.
Shawn Murphy is a thought leader, inspirational speaker, and CEO/Founder of Switch & Shift. He has a weekly column at Inc.com. His debut book, The Optimistic Workplace (AMACOM) is now available. Connect Murphy on Twitter @TheShawnMurphy.
