I was talking to a friend of mine, high up in an
organization, about a new employee who was not performing. The employee wasn’t a bad culture fit, but
his qualifications on his resume didn’t seem to match his performance on the
job. True enough this happens.
To help this employee who was not delivering on time, my
friend decided to put in place hard deadlines for her entire staff. Her prior style was to give soft request and
deadlines because she wanted her team to have autonomy and ownership. My friend wrapped up our conversation with,
“I don’t want to be that kind of boss,” inferring micromanaging.
Bad Boss - Not This Time
In this case, my exceptional leader friend wasn’t being a
bad boss.
My response, “Giving employees deadlines is not being a bad
boss. Giving someone a deadline and then
hovering over them until it is done because you don’t trust them is being a bad
boss. You are simply setting
expectations, and that is helpful for everyone.”
Good Bosses and Happy
Employees
As I teach leadership classes, what I see most often is
managers do not know it’s a best practice, or are afraid, to set clear
expectations. The intention is good, to
have individuals guide their work lives.
These good intention people want to treat their employees as the
bright adults they are. I get that.
But I would argue ambiguity is what is causes much
unnecessary stress in the workplace.
Happy employees, at any level, are ones given tasks with
clear deadlines, which they check off when accomplished. That is why so many people thrive on making
lists and Franklin Covey makes a fortune!
It also causes stress to the boss when they need to start disciplinary action. They ask their
HR professional, like me, “How did the employee not know what they were
supposed to do?” I can tell you why, most
of the time is the employee was unclear about expectations.
The Gurus’ Solution
Employee autonomy is how an employee goes about doing the
task. Give them the tasks, the
deadline, and then get the heck out of the way.
So help yourself and your employees, look at what you expect
them to do and tell them in simple clear terms.
Examples
- “I expect you to meet with your partners every two weeks, and send a summary report afterwards to the project team within 24 hours.”
- “I expect you to have the timeline sketched out by Friday. What obstacles do you see in making that happen?"
- “I expect you to work effectively with Sam and I know you have had some bumps in your relationship. Effectively to me means…”
So there you have it.
If you find your employees are not performing to expectations, first look
internally to see if you are setting clear expectations. Put in writing those clear expectations, with
deadlines, to make yours and your employees’ lives easier.
