Frances Horibe's

The Perils of Trying to Be Popular Your Employees I know, sounds ridiculous. If people hate you, you can’t get their cooperation, you can’t motivate them, they won’t help with reaching the unit’s goals and frankly, it makes for an unpleasant and stressful work place. So there are lots of good reasons why you want to be popular with your employees. But in a management position, you sometimes need to make decisions which aren’t popular with your unit. And in that weird way that is life, if you don’t make them, you’ll end up being disliked anyhow. Let’s consider what would happen down the line if your priority was being liked by your employees rather than being respected. Going for being popular So, let’s assume that you’ve been supervising the unit for a couple of years and have bent over backwards to be popular with the staff. This has included going for a beer after work, accommodating the personal preferences of employees, doing some of the work yourself to relieve the load, always being pleasant, and avoiding criticizing whenever possible. Let’s say you could be a fly on the wall for a conversation between two of your employees whom you…

Do You Need to be Likable to Your Employees? The dilemma set out in the previous post is whether, as a new supervisor, you should supervise a change to the work that everyone in your group wanted. You wanted to be likable and under pressure from Candice, your former colleague, now employee, you okayed the change. Candice drops by the next week. Candice: Hey, Mia. We released to the field three weeks earlier than we ever have. Looks like the change really worked. You: Hey, great! Candice: Yeah, everybody’s good with it. It’ll save a bunch of time and work. You: We should have done it a long time ago. Candice: See, I knew you’d be what we needed. You feel eight feet tall. You’re getting the swing of this! You supervise by listening to your employees and acting accordingly. After all, as Candice said, they know what’s really happening on the ground. Your boss calls you in A week later, Bruno calls you in. You’re pleased. You want to tell him about the success of the change you’ve made. Bruno: How’s it going? You: I think I’m getting the hang of things. Bruno: Uh-huh. I just talked to Noah…

Is It Better to Be Respected or Liked as a Supervisor? So, a promotion. Well done. You have taken over your old boss Albert’s job. You will now be supervisor to staff who, until you got this new job, were your colleagues. Honestly, this is a tough way to start in management. I think it’s actually easier to supervise people you don’t know in your first supervision job. But a promotion is a promotion and there is the whole thing about gift horses. Here’s a situation you might run into in the early days of your new role. How do you get respected as a supervisor? Candice comes into your office. Before you were promoted, you and Candice worked on many projects together. Candice: Hey, nice office! So how does it feel being the big cheese? You: Please. I’m not even a little cheese. Candice: I’m really glad you got the job. We can really get going now that old Albert is gone. You: Ah, I’ve had worse bosses. Candice: But you’re gonna be so much better. I mean, you’ve been down in the trenches with us. You: Well, thanks. I’ll certainly try. Candice: And, with Albert out of the…

Building Respect in Your New Management Position If life were fair, or even just convenient, people should automatically respect you simply because of your new elevated position. But if you’re waiting for that to kick in, I’d hunker down for a long one. In your previous jobs, you know that you had to earn your boss’ trust and respect. Same in a management position. But now you’ve got three groups to worry about. Below is a non-exhaustive list of how to earn respect from each group.   Your boss. Much of what you learned as a stellar employee will apply here.   How to get respect What that actually means What it does not mean Deliver on promises ·     Meet deadlines ·     Inform will miss deadline as soon as you know ·     Meet quality standards ·     Overpromise ·     Pull fast ones to appear  to meet the deadline Have your boss’ back ·     Inform boss if/when the s. is going to hit the fan ·     Position him to look good ·     Defend his interests when he’s absent ·     Bad-mouth him behind his back ·     Disagree with him in public   Manage your own area well ·     Deal with people problems effectively…

you decided to say ‘no’ to a change which your employees (represented by Candice) wanted. You need to let Candice know. Will standing your ground gain her respect?