Five Things to Stop Doing as a Manager
by Margie DuBois, CPC
June 5, 2024
Being a manger is hard. Sometimes it even feels like a thankless job.
If you’re a manager, you’ve likely felt exhausted in the post-pandemic world. You may not have the right training or capacity to effectively lead your team. Or maybe you’re unsure of how much you enjoy your role.
Despite these challenges, you have to take action and responsibility if you want to thrive as a manager. While leading people isn’t easy, there are low hanging fruits every manager can take advantage of to move the needle on your happiness and the performance of your team.
Here are five things you can stop doing today (and start doing instead) to manage people with greater influence and ease:
1 - Stop the Check-In Meeting Chaos
Checking-in with your direct reports is one of the best ways to build trust, gauge performance, and care for your employees. But many managers fail to prioritize check-in meetings or don’t design them strategically.
When check-in meetings are neglected, you send your employees a message that you don’t value them or their time, leading to resentment, disengagement, miscommunication, and performance issues down the road.
A great check-in meeting should be manageable, consistent, and impactful for the employee. It should monitor their progress, lend your support, and show your care for their wellbeing.
When designing a check-in meeting, consider the time, structure, and goals. Try to limit your check in to 30-minutes (some experts even recommend just ten!). Use a coaching framework by asking your employees a core set of questions that lead to meaningful answers. Think critically about when (and how often) you’re having your check-in meetings and avoid non-optimal times, such as Monday mornings. Develop guard rails around what topics make it onto your agenda and schedule one-off meetings to dive into meatier or strategic items.
During your meetings, encourage your employees to play a leadership role by asking them to come prepared with a list of their priorities and questions they have for you. If you are always the one running the show and initiating questions about their to-do lists, your employees will not become self-sufficient in their roles.
2 - Stop Confusing Empathy With Agreement
Merriam-Webster defines empathy as “the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another” (Source).
It goes without saying that empathy is one of the most important skills a leader can have for effectively managing people. Yet it’s where so many managers miss the mark.
Leaders fail to extend empathy when they don’t understand what it means or don’t know how to practice it. And they dodge it when they don’t want to experience the imagined discomfort or inconvenience of working through it.
When you empathize with someone or validate them, you are letting the person know that they have a right to feel the way they do - plain and simple. When someone feels heard by you, they are much more likely to get on board with your ideas.
Offering empathy to someone does not mean that you agree with the other person - in fact, you can completely disagree with someone and still validate their human experience. So practice it more often. It’s much easier than you think.
3 - Stop Dodging Accountability
Related to empathy, your ability to hold others accountable is also critical to your success as a manager, and the success of your team. Well-intentioned managers often fall into the trap of living too much in the empathy space and avoiding brave conversations to hold their employees accountable.
Empathy without accountability is not strong leadership. When you don’t hold your teammates accountable to the expectations you set for them, you hinder their progress and harm your team. People may start taking advantage of you. Even worse, if your high performers observe a lack of accountability from leadership, trust diminishes and they are more likely to become disengaged or leave your organization.
When you observe chronic behaviors that are getting in the way of an employee's success and the strength of your team, you must address them. Unfortunately, not all employees will take responsibility for their growth and behavior change, and it’s up to you to show everyone respect by following through.
Remember that all of your employees are dealing with challenging circumstances at home and at work. You can validate a person's feelings and experiences and still hold them accountable.
4 - Stop Neglecting Celebration and Appreciation
Many organizations and managers neglect to consistently celebrate their employees - or fail to do it at all. In fact, 73 percent of senior leaders say their organizations do not offer managers or leaders best-practices training for employee recognition (Source).
The irony is that creating a culture of recognition can save your organizations money. According to a study done by Gallup and Workhuman, a 10,000-employee company can save up to $16.1 million in turnover costs annually when they make recognition a priority. And when that happens, employees are five times more likely to feel connected to their culture.
Most teams fail to celebrate consistently because they haven’t created systems or norms that allow it to happen. Celebration can take place at standing check-in meetings, group meetings, annual employee events, and during impromptu moments.
Try your best to make celebration and praise specific and avoid generic “good job” cheerleading remarks. Instead, tell your employees what they did (in particular) that was awesome and how their actions impacted others.
Last, don’t forget about the compounding interest of smaller celebrations: when you are intentional about celebrating small wins and milestones along the way, it increases the likelihood of goal achievement and larger wins down the road. So celebrate your progress along the way.
5 - Stop Putting Training on the Back Burner
If you’re like most managers, you haven’t received adequate training to feel confident managing people effectively. And your colleagues are telling the story that your team doesn’t have enough time to allocate for proper training.
Here's the problem: the time you haven’t prioritized for training has created bigger issues for your organization. You can't afford to not invest in your managers.
Stop using time as an excuse for not prioritizing quality training. Things will always be busy at work and if your organization does not support the professional development of your managers, it will impact employee retention, performance, culture, and your bottom line.
Remember that you aren’t supposed to know how to coach people, give feedback, delegate, set expectations, or deliver a performance review. So don’t beat yourself up for the limited knowledge you have in your role. Instead, advocate for your needs and encourage others to do the same.
. . .
Leading people is a privilege - and it also can be confusing and depleting. The good news is you don’t have to struggle anymore. By becoming aware of the behaviors that are getting in your way and trying new ones instead, you can elevate your leadership and team.
Carve out 10 minutes today to set two intentions for your professional development as a manager, and share what you’re committing to with your colleagues. Meet with your leadership to share and identify challenges, opportunities, and training needs for all your managers. You might be surprised by how quickly things change.
About This Feature
Coaching Nuggets is a standing editorial feature in The Thirlby Co. Monthly Digest written by our company founder, Margie (Thirlby) DuBois, and occasional guest authors. Each nugget provides you with a quick read and resources to spark ideas and help you live your best life.
Read an article you love? Share it with a friend or two, or post on LinkedIn. Interested in having Margie as a guest author or speaker for your organization? Please reach out to us using our contact form. Subscribe to our newsletter to receive this feature and more inspiring content in the future.
