Signs You Are Lazy At Leading People

I will never deny being a manager of people is hard. When I say manager there are multiple jobs that fall into this category, not just the boss at work. Teachers, coaches, parents and mentors are all in the same group when it comes to overseeing, leading, guiding, and influencing other people. It is hard because every human being is unique and bring their own personality and baggage with them. But just because it is hard does not allow you to be a lazy when it comes to managing people. A lazy people manager does three things:

  1. They don't have the hard conversations with individuals - They would rather address a larger group, in a passive aggressive way. Broadly pointing out behaviors they expect to change. The problem is when you address a group the people that most need to listen to it are thinking to themselves they are fine, and you must be talking to someone else. You need to pull the individual aside and let them know specifically what the expectations are and why they aren't meeting them.
  2. They think being in a leadership position means you have to be harsh - We've all heard about tough love, and it is true there are times you have to be very straight forward. The goal in correcting someone is to have them improve, not tear them down so they feel worse about themselves. People need to hear the truth, but they don't need to hear it in a brutal way. One of my life versus is "Speak the truth in love." I have to remind myself as this is the area I need to work on more than any other. 
  3. Take out their bad days on the people they lead - We all have good days and bad days. When we have a bad day we are not at our best. We have a shorter fuse, we forget to take care of things we promised, and we communicate less effectively. It isn't fair to those you lead to give them less of an effort as their leader just because you aren't having a good day. When we have a bad day we can either pass it on and make more people miserable, or we can let it end with us and make sure nobody else shares our fate.
If you are in a position where you lead people, treat the position with the respect it deserves and provide the leadership and support those people lead they deserve. Learn, reflect, humble yourself, ask for feedback and let go of your pride to figure out how to get better and serve them better than you are doing today.

Bad managers are bad for business and the employees





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