Leadership And Managing People 5 Well-Intentioned Behaviors That Can Hurt Your Team - Sun and Planets Spirituality AYINRIN

 Leadership And Managing People

5 Well-Intentioned Behaviors That Can Hurt Your Team - Sun and Planets Spirituality AYINRIN

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Summary.   

Most people can spot a toxic leader and connect the dots on why and how they are causing damage. But it’s much harder to recognize when well-intentioned leaders are actually hurting their teams because they aren’t aware of their negative impact, and team members aren’t always comfortable pushing back. If you’re a manager with a strong desire to be helpful to your team, be aware of these five common ways you may inadvertently hurt them despite your best intentions.

When you decide to manage people, whether as a frontline supervisor or an executive leading multiple departments, there is one requirement implicit in your job description: shifting from a self-oriented mindset to one that serves and elevates the potential of others in your charge.

Of course, there are always people who choose leadership roles out of self-interest rather than service. But for the vast majority of managers, they consider the responsibility to be an honor and a privilege — and out of that sense of duty, try to be as helpful as possible to their teams. But what happens when a manager’s desire to help begins to cause harm to their people?

As an executive coach to leaders at the world’s top companies, I’ve observed that this scenario plays out much more often than you might think. Most people can spot a toxic leader and connect the dots on why and how they are causing damage. But it’s much harder to recognize when well-intentioned leaders are actually hurting their teams because they aren’t aware of their negative impact, and team members aren’t always comfortable pushing back. In fact, a recent study shared that during times of crisis, certain manager behaviors intended to reduce worker burden were actually seen as downright unhelpful by the employees.

If you’re a manager with a strong desire to be helpful to your team, be aware of these five common ways you may inadvertently hurt them despite your best intentions.

Seeking constant agreement 

On any team, conflict is inevitable. Yet many managers see it as disruptive to team cohesion and a threat to their ability to lead. These leaders cope with disagreements either by shutting them down or ignoring them. But in their seemingly helpful desire to have everyone “just get along,” they can end up damaging their team’s morale.

I once coached an executive whose discomfort with conflict was rooted in growing up in a volatile and anger-filled household. He dealt with the tension by pretending things were fine, choosing to be relentlessly positive and if that wasn’t possible, to just stay out of other people’s drama.

As a manager, he operated in a similar fashion, wanting everyone to be in agreement, which ultimately stifled motivation and independent thinking. For instance, whenever anyone suggested a creative project that challenged the status quo, he either dismissed it as unnecessarily disruptive or considered it only after team consensus. The result was an over-reliance on groupthink which soon positioned his department as one most employees dreaded joining for career growth, and which had a reputation for stagnant business progress.

Leaders like my client generally mean well but their desire to make people feel good working for them is based on a very hubristic rationale: that everyone shares the same comforts and discomforts as them. But effective team leadership requires accepting when individual values, strengths and aspirations may be at odds with each other and leveraging people’s differences rather than shutting them down or wishing them away.

Overprotecting the team

In addition to avoiding intra-team conflict out of a desire to be helpful, many well-intentioned leaders shield their people from intra-company issues that they believe could derail their motivation. Such leaders may consider themselves protectors of their people and helpful advocates but may in fact be doing their teams a disservice.

One of my coaching clients talked about his team as if he was their defender within the company, keeping them supported when dealing with other divisions and corporate demands. He would remind them that he “had their back” when having to fight for shared resources or achieve milestones with other departments.

But he also shielded his team from important feedback across the company, thinking they were better off not knowing. He came across as unrealistically optimistic in the face of any negative input, failed to coach team members with critical feedback, and dismissed criticism rather than help his team learn from it. As a result of this leader’s zero-sum mindset against other teams, he not only developed a negative reputation across the company, his reports did as well.

When you’re in charge, it’s noble to want the best for your team as politics and turf wars arise. But your people need honest and transparent coaching to grow, not your rescuing them. Be careful about excessively moralizing your job and seeing yourself as a hero to your staff. Such an approach may feel magnanimous but instead stifles their learning of how to collaborate and influence well. Not to mention, it’s likely you won’t be leading this team forever; you may even be called to lead your peers one day so it’s best to build, not burn bridges.

Getting results without learning 

In today’s fast-moving world of business, managers that get results are typically ones with a penchant for action and swift decision-making. Few people want to work for a slow and complacent leader, so one way managers see themselves as helpful is to motivate the team toward fast results so they can keep celebrating progress.

But in the desire to keep momentum high and constantly achieving more, leaders may leave little time for reflection, insight, and alignment of purpose. And when managers dismiss these activities in the name of winning, they risk eventual team derailment.

Consider that employees and leaders are all people with their own needs for meaning and learning at work, not simply mechanical resources to push harder or pivot when newer goals are set. And even the most human-centered leaders forget to make time for communicating the “why” and the “how” behind the work, as much as the “what.”

In your next one-on-ones, integrate learning, reflection, and purpose into every execution-related discussion. You may ask them, “What was the most pivotal action that led to these outcomes and is there anything we should be doing differently?” Or dig into their sense of meaning and ask, “Why is this project important to you and how can we make it more aligned with your goals?”

Don’t just spend your time with them tracking outcomes after the fact; help them come up with ways to learn and prepare in advance. This will not only protect them from future slip-ups, it will also give them a sense of ownership and pride in the intended result.

Being too involved (or not at all)

Micromanagement is one of the most common behaviors of toxic leaders. But even the most benevolent leaders end up micromanaging their people when they refuse to delegate completely and give team members autonomy. Such managers try to be a useful resource to reduce worker burden, not understanding that their help is causing more unwelcome work in the process.

I once coached a well-meaning CFO who fell into this trap. He had an insatiable need to follow up with team members after every action they took, asking background questions out of curiosity and offering new suggestions so they “weren’t missing anything.” In his view, such interactions were benign, not judgmental; “after all,” he’d say, “we’re in this together.” But in his team’s view, his follow-ups were time-consuming and redirected precious energy that reduced productivity. And because no one wanted to push back on him given his seniority, they simply went along with humoring him while privately feeling demotivated.

On the other extreme, some managers can view themselves as helpful by completely empowering their team, even to the point of being hardly around. It’s not that they don’t care for their people, but rather choose to compartmentalize their attention. For instance, a manager may decide to work on strategy rather than operations, or on external customer engagement than internal team-building.

But in this desire to help by giving the team autonomy, such leaders can harm their people by being absent or aloof. The success of all leaders relies on developing successors and future talent, as well as ensuring operational effectiveness across the team. These activities demand accessibility and active presence. So, if you want to empower and delegate from a distance, make sure to still lean in when needed, to coach, give feedback, and be there when performance is lacking.

Being everyone’s friend

Many managers believe that treating their team like family or friends is the best way to be helpful and supportive. But personal affiliation isn’t the same as effective teamwork. Seeking to be friends with your employees can cause undue confusion and strife. And at its worst, it can cause perceptions of favoritism, forced loyalty, and even unethical crossing of boundaries.

What really boosts employee engagement are opportunities for development and a sense of purpose. Managers can do well to focus less on being a fun person to hang out with and more on being a source of learning, offering practical insight, and removing obstacles for advancement.

Leaders who want to support their teams are certainly a greater asset to an organization and its people. But their helpfulness can unexpectedly harm their team. Be aware of these specific tendencies to make sure your support isn’t counterproductive.

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