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Published On: Dec 23, 2003 09:57 AM
Total entries in this category:
Published On: Dec 23, 2003 09:57 AM
Make Your Employees Look Good
...chances are they'll return the
favor.
At least a good manager will avoid making an
employee look bad, whether to coworkers or
customers.
I recently watched an ugly scene: a manager dressing down an employee in full sight of other workers and customers. I found it rather hard to fathom: what had the employee done that was so awful? What inappropriate behavior deserved such embarrassment? It turned out that the employee had committed the unpardonable crime of knowing more than the manager about how the cash register worked!
The management of emotion is crucial for effective leadership; jealousy and defensiveness are costly. If the manage I saw had been in control of his emotion, there would have been at least three immediate benefits: the manager would have learned something, the employee would have felt affirmed, and customers would have remained comfortable. I'm sure I wasn't the only one who left that store without buying anything.
Looking more closely, we see that the manager was feeling defensive...we don't know why, and for our purposes it doesn't really matter. It may have been something at home, or it may have had to do with some unwelcome communication from corporate; in any case, it was the manager's unmanaged emotion that turned out to be the real issue in this case. When the manager felt that the employee was making him look bad, he felt he had to 'put him in his place,' which was a shame, because you can be sure that that employee is never going to take initiative in that store again, and because those of us who witnessed the proceedings felt vicarious embarrassment for the employee.
Imagine what might have happened if the manager had managed himself before trying to manage the employee: the very thing the manager seemed so afraid of was that the employee had made him look bad, but managing his own defensiveness would have made him look far better than his actual reaction had. In addition, he would have made a significant deposit in the emotional account with the employee, which goes a long way towards making employees more productive.
I ate in a restaurant not long ago where the manager had a different strategy altogether: he actually helped the servers do a better job. He carried trays, held doors, encouraged them and laughed with them...he even praised them to the customers! Whatever else you might say about that manager, one thing is absolute: his employees would have followed him to the ends of the earth.
If you make your employees look good, chances are they'll make you look like the best manager who ever wielded a clipboard.
I recently watched an ugly scene: a manager dressing down an employee in full sight of other workers and customers. I found it rather hard to fathom: what had the employee done that was so awful? What inappropriate behavior deserved such embarrassment? It turned out that the employee had committed the unpardonable crime of knowing more than the manager about how the cash register worked!
The management of emotion is crucial for effective leadership; jealousy and defensiveness are costly. If the manage I saw had been in control of his emotion, there would have been at least three immediate benefits: the manager would have learned something, the employee would have felt affirmed, and customers would have remained comfortable. I'm sure I wasn't the only one who left that store without buying anything.
Looking more closely, we see that the manager was feeling defensive...we don't know why, and for our purposes it doesn't really matter. It may have been something at home, or it may have had to do with some unwelcome communication from corporate; in any case, it was the manager's unmanaged emotion that turned out to be the real issue in this case. When the manager felt that the employee was making him look bad, he felt he had to 'put him in his place,' which was a shame, because you can be sure that that employee is never going to take initiative in that store again, and because those of us who witnessed the proceedings felt vicarious embarrassment for the employee.
Imagine what might have happened if the manager had managed himself before trying to manage the employee: the very thing the manager seemed so afraid of was that the employee had made him look bad, but managing his own defensiveness would have made him look far better than his actual reaction had. In addition, he would have made a significant deposit in the emotional account with the employee, which goes a long way towards making employees more productive.
I ate in a restaurant not long ago where the manager had a different strategy altogether: he actually helped the servers do a better job. He carried trays, held doors, encouraged them and laughed with them...he even praised them to the customers! Whatever else you might say about that manager, one thing is absolute: his employees would have followed him to the ends of the earth.
If you make your employees look good, chances are they'll make you look like the best manager who ever wielded a clipboard.
Posted: Thu - December 18, 2003 at 05:02 PM