In January, I wrote about "Leadership Behaviors" which tracked back to a post by Lance Secretan about a recent study by a Florida State University Professor that found that employees don’t leave companies, they leave bosses…
I happened upon a post by Olivier Blanchard, on his Brand Builder blog which comes to the same conclusion, here’s what Olivier had to say:
"I was browsing Upstate Magnet yesterday (a small local business publication), and came up on this great little one-page article written by Jack Smalley (SPHR with Express Personnel).
Having seen top performers leave organizations time and time again, Jack’s points seemed sadly familiar. I have encountered them all myself, and I have to admit that each one of these can consitute a good reason for even the most talented, hard-working employee or manager to go seek greener pastures. Combine any two or three – or all five – and you can expect to spend a whole lot of your HR department’s time searching and hiring top talent to replace the folks you weren’t savvy enough to hold on to in the first place.
Olivier goes on to tell us about "six things your company may be doing to chase away top talent: (go to full article for details)
1. There is no link between pay and performance
2. They don’t perceive advancement opportunities
3. Their contributions are not recognized
4. Management has unclear or unrealistic expectations
5. They will no longer tolerate abusive managers
6. Constant reorganization of management
And adds:
"As an aside –
Typical traits of lousy managers:– Excessive demands & personal sacrifices.- Placing their department in a continual state of crisis.
– A demand for employees to be available at all hours.
– Setting unreasonable deadlines.
– Pony Express management style (Ride ’em till they drop), causing burnout, stress and depression in their people.
– Risk-aversion.
– Abusive treatment of employees.
– Being too busy to make themselves helpful.
– Acting annoyed at requests for help, advice or insight.
– Nepotism.
– Making last-minute unilateral decisions that make absolutely no sense.
– "Big Stick" management. (Screw up, and I will hit you over the head with the big stick.)
– A complete lack of trustworthiness
One of the conclusions from the article was as simple as it was astute, and it is this:
Most employees don’t quit their jobs. They quit their managers.
That’s pretty powerful… and absolutely correct.
I know it’s pretty obvious for many of you, but it is well worth bringing up from time to time."
