“YOU YELL, THEY DO THE WORK, REPEAT! THEN WHAT?”
Think about this for a moment -
“Deadlines are short, feedback is lengthy, quality is deteriorating due to demand for higher quantity and there’s a lot of pressure for getting the work done. You start telling your team to get started, they don’t understand where you’re coming from, so they ask you questions, look confused or simply don’t deliver what you expected. You lose your calm, yell at them and they somehow do what you wanted them to do. Project over!”
THEN WHAT?
Next project, Cycle repeats!
In this entire process,
We were so busy giving our opinions, we forgot to ask for ideas,
We were so busy criticizing, we forgot to encourage,
We were so busy demanding results, we forgot to inspire,
We were so busy yelling, we forgot to respect
We were so so busy being bosses, we forgot to be leaders!
The other day when I was staring at my blank laptop screen, unhappy with a supremely toxic work culture I was a part of, I thought to myself: Where does all the excitement of reaching a position of power and trying to make a difference go along the way?
Here’s what happens (Probably)
- THE RAT RACE BECOMES OUR TOP MOST PRIORITY
It is good to be ambitious. It gives our life a direction. But “If we don’t run, we will lose” is a done to death mentality.
Let’s be honest, we hate the “Rat Race” but we keep running! Why? Because of our limiting beliefs. We believe if everyone is doing it to be successful, it is probably essential for us to do the same too. Thus, we stop our inner intelligence from talking and we start running at the speed others are, we start doing things that are working for others, without thinking whether they are working for us or not, we start following the herd instead of creating our own path. In this process of defeating others is where we lose our VALUES and MINDS! And that my friend is a hopeless situation.
2. WITH GREAT POWER COMES GREAT MICROMANAGEMENT
It feels good to be in a position of power, it helps us make a difference, helps us bring about a change. But there’s a very thin line between using and misusing your power. If you’re able to stop yourself from crossing the line, excellent! However, if you fail, the NEED FOR CONTROL takes over and it makes us do terrible, terrible things.
Our need for control stops us from letting people be, it stops us from trusting our employees/colleagues and we end up preferring conformists over thinkers.
These conformists might give your ego a good boost, but they do no good for your brand/company because they might be brilliant executors, but they lack creative and innovative thinking.
One more problem with Micromanagers is that they don’t realise they are micromanaging. My previous boss would ask all of us to voice our opinions as experts and fight for the things we believe were right. However, everytime I or anyone else attempted to do so, it didn’t go quite well with them and a 15 minute call became 3 hours long. In this process of avoiding long calls I was turning into a conformist and that was a major shift in my personality and I wasn’t okay with it.
Nevertheless, Killing freedom and creativity at work, to feel in control is the dumbest thing we can do as entrepreneurs/leaders/managers.
3. RESPECT, BOTH GIVING AND TAKING IS FORGOTTEN
When power gets in our head, respect, kindness and similar values tend to get out!
If someone makes a mistake, yelling at them, playing the blame game, making them feel ashamed, is easy to do when we are in a position of power. It takes patience, understanding and empathy to actually show the person what is wrong , give constructive feedback and either help them fix it, or fix it with them. This approach will foster a healthy exchange of respect, based on conduct, goodwill and quality of character and not only due to seniority and position.
My previous manager would yell at almost everyone, always found a scapegoat to blame things on and disrespect people in the organisation quite often. This left everyone feeling concerned, embarrassed and defeated. Thus, increasing the attrition rate. But, since employee retention wasn’t something they gave importance to, the yelling business for them worked just fine
4. HIGH IQ, LOW EQ
Your intelligence and skills might get you your dream job when you start but as you climb the ladder and take on leadership roles, having a high emotional quotient makes a lot of sense.
If you’re leading a group of machines, IQ works just fine. But leading/managing human beings is really tricky and requires emotional intelligence to coach people, deal with pressure, manage stress and inspire!
Talking about EQ, empathy is literally the king of all values. If you empathize then respect, kindness, helping people and every other value falls into their respective places. Empathy improves your decision making, makes you a better listener and helps you build stronger relationships with your team.
So next time someone says they are going through something personal and they need some time and understanding, instead of assuming it is an excuse, please be humble because you could be wrong!
5. SOMETIMES PEOPLE ARE JUST TOXIC
If you come across any spesh trait of meanness or lack of empathy, observe it from afar, but do not let it distress you.
We meet many such people throughout our lives, sometimes they appear to be charming, confident and full of ideas at first but we later realise they are aggressive, manipulative and masters at playing with our mind and emotions.
Sometimes, there is no categorization out there for the kind of things these people do. Let me give you examples from my previous workplace
Asking people to work while they are sick due to COVID, demanding for a proof of the same inorder to receive full salary and telling people they did a favour by not deducting their salaries while they were on leave due to COVID is nothing but mean and low EQ decisions.
Toxic people exist everywhere! This could even mean that the most toxic person in your life is ‘YOU’ . So, next time we project our low EQ behaviour on others, I suggest we do a little self-introspection and cut everyone some slack!