9 Types of Bosses Who Create Disengagements
We often talk about how to engage employees and make an organisation a better place to work. We forget that the engagement process of the employee is actually driven by the attitude of the boss. There are 9 most common type of bosses that show attitude which disengage their teams.
Here are the 9 type of those bosses:
1. A boss that deals with politics and power in an unprofessional manner. Some bosses do not expect their people to have strong team bonding. They fear that their team will someday act against his position and power. Bosses like this often uses tactics such as splitting power, use gossips and rumours to create internal conflict. They believe that conflicts give them advantage of taking control his/her power.
2. A boss that becomes jealous upon seeing his/her subordinates showing better thinking or capabilities. This type of bosses has an inferiority complex that is hidden under his power and his need to always be in power. This type of bosses often does not want to see his/her subordinate getting a better career or surpass his/her position.
3. Negative talks that generate a mood of resentment among the team member.Cynicism, condescending tone, arrogance will make his/her team grow resentful. When people are in this mood, they want to get even or retaliate. This is not a good way of instilling support and building positive energy in the organisation.
4. Excessive use of fear and threat to drive people into action. At first workers seem to improve their performance when fear is imposed. However, in the long run it grows similar to cancer which saps morale and energy of people in the organisation. Worse, people will do their job only under surveillance. At best, they just do what is written in the SOP. Creativity will be crippled and fear presents itself.
5. Authoritarian leadership style. When people cannot express their mind freely the organisation will breed blind followers.This type of boss demands sameness over difference. The unintended side effects are: disloyal employees, field problems are kept from being known by upper layer, and growing ignorance among employees.
6. A boss that can not control his/her emotion and often uses YTS: ‘Yelling, Threatening and Swearing’ . In the long run good people will leave and the remaining will be lethargic after prolonged stress. Some of them still work because they can not find a better place. Their purpose of work is only for economical survival. They will not care if bad things happen to the company.
7. A boss who demands full loyalty of his/her people. This type of bosses demands his/her team to fulfil his/her request at once. He/she needs a constant assurance that nobody betrays him/her. Working for this type of boss is a type of modern slavery, with the chains not in the form of handcuffs, but salary, perks and benefits.
8. A boss who says and believes that he/she is always right. This Mr Right is astute at diplomacy and word war at meeting room. He/she knows how to build coalitions which he/she needs to cling onto for support and power. Working under him will surely depreciate self respect and self values. Often high blood pressure and depression are pervasive among his/her team.
9. A boss who does not grow nor groom his/her team. This boss treats his/her people as his/her possessions. Good team members are kept and not allowed to work cross-functionally. He/she rarely coaches, mentors or teaches. There is practically no transfer of skills to his/her team member.
Good people do not leave their organisation.They leave bad bosses. Not surprisingly, the type of bosses as illustrated above often survive for long in the company. They may grow their power base since the early establishment of the organisation. The main task of human capital as a policy maker is to be aware about the existence of such individual. The efforts of people development or culture change will not produce desired results when this type of boss presence.
The challenge of HR or Human Capital is to design a system, process and practice that do not allow such individual to exist or even thrive in the organisation. The courage of human capital to have difficult conversations with the top management to resolve this situation is crucial to regain employees' trust. When these 9 types of bosses do not exist anymore, the relationships between superior and his/her team members will grow more robust and healthy. It is through valuing respect, fairness, diversity and objectivity, the workforce will thrive into highly engaged teams. This is the essence of a high performance culture organization.
(leksana th)
