7 Bad Management Habits

As a manager one has a lot of influence on the situations in the company and the success that can occur. However with great power comes great responsibility as is often quoted and hence a manager’s habits can be of critical importance to the success of an organization. There are seven habits which if a manager practices these they can lead to sure management failure.

1. Emotional Decisions

There is nothing wrong with emotions in their correct context however if one begins to ignore reason and logic then emotions can become a hindrance to progressive management. Remember as a manager one is surrounded  by policies, procedures  and strategy hence the need to be more logical as opposed to emotions. Decisions made in an emotional state tend to be clouded such that the impact may be detrimental to the development of the company.

2. Ignoring Professional Staff input

When an employee is hired it’s because they have a skill set which is useful to the organization. The moment that skill set is ignored and not made use of it then the company suffers from the absence of the value it could have received from this. A manager who ignores their professional staff members input is asking for trouble, because no manager can see everything.

3. Being a bad examples to employees

Humans act the way leaders act in most cases, it is in our nature to be followers. If a manager is always late, disrespects other employees, lies, or simply just never seems to care then the same habits will quickly rub on to the rest of the employees. In no time at all the same employees will simply copy what they see in the manager. A manager must be able to build enough credit with employees such that if the manager misses a step once in a while the employees will recognize the issue as an exception and not as a normal occurrence.

4.  Disrespects employees

Being a manager does not give one the right to insult or to demean people or make cruel jokes about them. This can be outright bullying and such levels of behavior can lead to  bad management results.

5.  Not talking to employees about the objectives

It is a good thing being a manager and knowing the strategy of the company but if one wants buy in then one must share. Share the objectives and what the company is planning to achieve. Have a  few debrief sessions per month in which  the manager gets to communicate with the employees. Not talking to employees about the objectives of the company is always a sure disaster in the making.

6. Not coaching where coaching is needed

This may seem like one of those “Is it my job?”, but coaching is essential if a manager is going to get the best out of their employees. Sometimes the manager may not be the one doing the coaching but if the environment can be set up it will create a good climate of welcoming new employees and the senior employees will feel more appreciated.

7. Being petty and wanting to know everything

There is nothing as irritating as a manager who wants to know every single trace of activity that an employee did. It creates a climate of mistrust. If a manager is too hands on then the employees will stop thinking and before one knows it, even the smallest of decisions will be referred to the manager.  Employees are employed to think in their domain so a manager must learn to let them think.