As a recent employee to your job, you are becoming familiar with the work environment and your work associates. You have met the boss on two occasions; your interview and one time when he or she demanded that you finish a client’s report. Your boss’s unapproachable nature makes you feel uneasy if not a bit fearful.
As the boss, you don’t have a clue that your workers are intimidated by you. You are basically just concerned that they do their jobs well and produce profit for the company. Your impression of your co-workers is that if they don’t confront you about a problem, then everything is right on target.
Work associates are people that have come together for one common purpose; work. These working relationships are more surfaced than relationships with relatives or close friends; and the levels of authority and status found in business can inhibit communications and relationships. When the boss doesn’t make time to communicate with workers, employees can misinterpret actions or lack of actions as negative feedback. They can become afraid to communicate with their boss. However, with the right management coaching, beneficial communication lines can be established between the manager and his or her co-workers. The following problems discuss potential management issues in the workplace and offer coaching recommendations in more detail.
1. Workers think the best way to build strong relationships with their managers is by keeping quiet and looking the other way, even when there is a problem.
Management coaching suggestion #1
Although it may be the easy way out to avoid confrontation, you may never get to the bottom of a disagreement if you don’t address your arguments. Continuing to look the other way will only cause you to build resentment towards the manager. You don’t have to go to the extreme and boldly confront the manager. Just make sure that you have presented the issue to your manager so that he or she is aware of the problem. After you and the manager understand the issue from the other’s perspective, you can come to a fair resolution. Conversely, you will have better respect for each other because you shared a concern.
2. Some managers find opportunities to coach but they put it low on priority.
Management coaching suggestion #2
A manager who gives feedback a backseat will never have the chance to communicate with employees. By nature, we procrastinate because of the complexity of or fear to deal with a sticky issue. Instead, we will fill up our time with other tasks to help justify our delays. A manager may feel uncomfortable to confront, or inadequate to advise employees, but the ability to use management coaching with co-workers will produce a healthy, open communication network in the workplace.
3. Managers are blind to their own faults while seeing imperfections of others.
Management coaching suggestion #3
Managers are expected to be experts in the work place. They have the authority to rectify a situation if change or improvement is needed. Yet, because they are so focused on the issues, managers may favor their judgment due to a broader knowledge or longer experience than the workers under them. This nature of self-bias is not limited to managers but to all people in general. People are naturally inclined to prefer their own judgment over those of others. They are quick to point out faults in others but fail to see the same faults in themselves. Constructive criticism is a popular, professional approach to correct employees. Yet, mutual feedback given in an objective and honest manner that doesn’t attack, improves character and respect between both parties.