4 Major Problems that Arise at the Hands of Bad Management Practices (Guest Blog)

Poor management skills impact lasting effects, and in worse cases, can change the overall dynamics of the entire organization. All this is due to the destructive and negative workarounds that expel far-reaching effects.According to a survey stated in the 2015 State of the American Manager report, one out of every two employees admitted they quit their job once in their career due to the bad management they worked under.

On contrast to that, genuinely sincere and powerful managers have the ability to influence their company from every positive aspect they can think of, everything from the employee retention to empowering them enough for elevating productivity like never before. The point is, a good management knows how to lead by example, get the best out of their workforce, and creates a positive working environment.

As for this blog post, we are going to examine some critical issues that surface under the rule of bad management, and what practices could be employed to counter their problems.

1. Recognition avoidance

Once of the most common issues, when employees do not get the recognition for their hard work and are criticized for the slightest gaps in performance, they start to feel undervalued and work under the fear of making the next blunder in work. A study from Achievers in 2015 surveyed around 397 employees, out of which an unfortunate 57% of the workforce felt they were not recognized for their work. Simply speaking, avoiding recognition is the perfect motivation killer in any firm.

Communicating in an effective and appropriate manner is a vital part of a good management rule. Communicating not only comprises of speaking words for delegating work, but are also spoken to let employees know they are being valued by their managers. Its obvious employees tend to feel highly motivated and energized when managers identify and acknowledge their individual strengths.

The point is to facilitate a transparent and open communication channel that regulates the provision and receiving of a constructive feedback. Recognition not only involves announcing the hard efforts of a particular employee, but a concerned and excellent manager will also help you recognize your weaknesses and provide guidance on how to turn them into strengths.

2. Conducting irrelevant and bad meetings

Agreeably, most meetings at a regular workplace has a tiny output to offer as compared to the time invested. A meeting turns into a ‘bad sit together’ when the manager is not willing to voice his/her employees’ concerns, and the attendees display a glaring disinterest in attending the meeting.

For most of the staff, meetings are nothing but a time consuming workday aspect, that so easily distracts your focus from key projects only to force you create the meeting agenda, compile meeting listicles and minutes, and provide a so-called ‘creative’ input. Even a 10-minute meeting can kill off your motivation and flow of completing your daily to-do list.

Staying clear from bad meetings strictly calls for excellent management skills that are responsible to run the company and its operational procedures in a productive and fluent manner. However, it doesn’t mean that meetings are to be discarded totally from the company’s books, but the management should identify and send invites only to the right personnel for a particular meeting.

For example, if a critical project is to be handed over to only a selected team of specialists, never pull in the whole department to the meeting. Those who have very little input to offer and are rather ‘optional’, they will simply stare blankly into space, sit frustratingly, on simply use their favorite app to kill time.

Prepare a clear agenda to keep the meeting on the right track. If all the attendees are briefed with a defined schedule, they clearly know what to expect and how to prepare themselves. It’s very easy to route the meeting discussion to some related stories, experiences, or any other storytelling engagement, however, it is the job of the meeting facilitator to bring everyone back on track so meeting could be concluded within the allotted time.
Always conclude a meeting by asking for a feedback. The purpose is to acquire the attendees’ opinions on the effectiveness and quality of the meeting and how can they further improve the process.

3. Implant fear

Bad managers tend to instill security in the minds of the employees for their job security. When an employee senses a termination or layoff looming over, the gossip starts to spread across the entire office. While the instant impulse of anyone would be to start hunting for a new job. Besides that, they will stop relying on the management and reduce their overall morale drastically.

Managers who are known to spread this kind of fear and uncertainty in the workforce will always play the blame game, not disclose vital information, and answer your questions in a rather unprofessional and rude manner. They won’t empathize with you, hence creating a persona of being unreliable and unsupportive in times of need. The manager is comfortably happy with his/her unpredictable nature, as they are very well-aware that unpredictability always creates and sustain uncertainty and fear in the team.

How a good management should behave in this regard?

A good and employee-centric management will always favor an environment built on the basis of trust and honesty. The fear as if this is your last day should be strictly discouraged, neither are you required to carry irrelevant stress with you at any time.

Managers should also encourage a transparent channel to communicate the needed company information for all the employees. Rather than using unjustified blames, management should take responsibility and accountability and transform the organizational inefficiencies into their strengths.

4. Thriving a negative environment

When managers create and run all the above three habits, a mighty negative environment has been created. This will impact the workforce to stress and become anxious, only to end up decreasing their productivity greatly. A negative environment thrives through a number of ill management practices including inconsistent policies, unjustified favoritism, and a lack of true leadership.

The best solution is to create just policies that are same for all, regardless of the designation or tenure duration of any employee. It is one of the foremost principles of effective management to treat all employees in a fair and equal manner.

The environment should be friendly enough to instill confidence in employees for discussing their compensation or other job-related issues freely without any hesitation. Remember, a positive and transparent workplace promotes teamwork, and respects the work ethic philosophies and styles of all teams without any discrimination.

Author Bio

Andres Parks is an accomplished MBA and has been working in the top-level management positions for the last 5 years. Besides an avid reader and writer of outstanding corporate management and culture blogs, Andres is also an experienced assignment writers for a plethora of industries across the globe.