My Leadership Solutions

lead·er·ship: not only for those with a fancy title. High doses can lead to success. Side effects include courage and confidence

Workplace Favoritism: I’m Sick of Being the Manager’s Pet

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I’ve commonly hear from people who have experienced the negative effects of workplace favoritism by not being favored by the manager, but recently I received a question from someone who is experiencing the negative effects of being favored by the manager.

Manager's Pet2I appreciate you bringing up this question, because I’m sure many readers as well as your own team members don’t realize how the person receiving preferential treatment may feel.

You’re in a difficult position because you don’t want to make your manager angry at you, but you also want to feel part of a team with your co-workers.

Your co-workers probably are not angry at you, but are angry at the treatment you are getting.  They also may assume that you’re doing something to get the special treatment from the manager, such as spying on them and reporting everything back to your manager.

Start by confronting the behavior of your co-workers.  When they roll their eyes when you ask for help, ask questions to get clarification without acting hostile.  For example, you can ask “What’s wrong?  Are you too busy or am I getting you at a bad time?  Is there anything I can do to help you out to make it easier for you to help me with XYZ?”  If this approach doesn’t work, set aside time to have individual conversations with your co-workers to discuss the problem.  Chances are that each person has their own individual view of the situation and their own perception of you, so it’s better to talk to each person individually to understand their take on the situation.

Now, you still haven’t tackled the problem of how the manager treats you.  If you tell your manager to start treating you worse so that other employees don’t get the wrong idea, it may cause your manager to get defensive and deny treating you differently.  A better approach is to subtly help your manager treat everyone better.  When your manager asks you to be in charge, suggest that different employees be put in charge in order to help strengthen their skills.  Recommend someone else for the responsibility.  Give credit for team members’ ideas and accomplishments during meetings so your manager will see that you’re not a one-man or one-woman show.  Encourage other employees to have one-on-ones with your manager in order to get to know him or her better and also to talk about their career goals.

Don’t stop being a top performer.  It may be the easy way out to start slacking off so you don’t get the preferential treatment, but it could ruin your good reputation and possibly your career at the company.  You also don’t want to get so bogged down with your co-workers’ and manager’s treatment of you that you forget to focus on your own career goals.  Know what your goals are and continue to work toward them.

 

I Don’t Want To Be A Manager Anymore. How Do I Tell My Boss?

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I received this question from a manager who doesn’t want to be a manager anymore.

 

 

 

First of all, don’t beat yourself up for it.  It’s okay to try out a role and realize that it’s not for you.  Start by making a list of the specific reasons that you want out of the role so that you can gather your thoughts and be able to have an effective conversation with you manager.  It’s not a good idea to say that you’re sick of your role because you have to do too much work or that you have to manage a bunch of morons.

Ask yourself:  Why don’t I want to be a manager?

Is there anything that could be changed in this role to make you continue being a manager?   Are you not getting the support or resources you need?  Are you not getting the training you need?  Or is it just that you don’t want to manage people and would prefer to be an individual contributor?

Then write down your goals.  Do your goals align better with staying in the role you’re in or moving into a different role?  If you would prefer to do the work yourself than manage other people, then you’re probably better cut out for the individual contributor role.  However, if you feel that the manager role does align with your goals and that you’re not getting the right resources, make a note of what you need so that you’ll be prepared to talk to your manager about it.

Talk to your manager and be candid.  Express how appreciative you are to have received the chance to be a manager.  Then give concrete reasons why you want to move into a different role.  If you found that you’re not getting enough support or training or XYZ to be in the manager role, tell your manager what you need in order to be successful in this role.

If you found that you’d prefer to be in a different role, let him or her know that you will stay in the position until they can find a new manager and that you’ll help transition the work to the new manager.  Since you were valuable enough to be promoted to a manager position, it’s likely they’ll let you want to keep you.  However, you should still be prepared for the worst-case scenario, which is that they’ve already hired someone to take your previous position and they don’t have a budget for another position.  If that happens, you’ll have to decide whether to stay in the manager position or leave the company.  If you decide to stay in the role and your manager knows you want to leave, make sure to have a list of development ideas to help you in your role.

Good luck!

Death and Communication

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Recently I stumbled upon an article, The 5 Regrets of the Dying, by Joe Martino based on a book with the same title written by a palliative nurse who was with people leading up to their final days.  One of the main regrets expressed is “I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.”

It’s easy to go through day-to-day life without thinking about death.  After all, it would put a damper on the day if death was always on the forefront of your mind.  However, if becoming aware of your own mortality helps you face some of the conversations that you’ve been putting off, then it’s not that bad to think about it once in a while.

Expressing feelings and having tough conversations is vital to helping you be the leader in your personal life as well as in your work life.  E-mail, texting, and social media make it easier to forgo having real conversations and expressing real feelings.  Instead, they make it easier to project what you want people to think you’re feeling.  They also remove the personal element from the communication.

Yes, these are all forms of communication, but communicating isn’t always just about getting a message across.  You really make an impact when your communication involves genuine feeling and connection.

Think about someone in your life, whether personal life or business life, with whom you’ve been meaning to have a certain conversation with.  It could be any type of conversation you’ve been putting off –whether to express gratitude, to convey certain feelings, to express appreciation, or to say you’re sorry.  Imagine how you would feel if you or that person weren’t around to have that conversation.  Now, schedule a time to have the conversation.

None of us can know how many days we have left in this world.  What we can do is make the precious time we do have here really count.

The Rise of Applicant Tracking Systems

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Do you remember having to print out a resume on nice paper and putting it in the envelope to send to prospective employers?  I never did mail a resume, because ever since I started working, jobs were posted online and resumes were submitted online through the “applicant tracking system.”

However, when I first started working in Human Resources about eight years ago, I received paper resumes from candidates because the option was available to them.  I do admit that some companies took longer to adapt than others.  Now when I did my informal survey and looked at fifty or so company job postings online, I noticed that none of the postings provided a mailing address for paper resumes.  Some did point out that you stood no chance to get the job if you didn’t apply online (stated in a much nicer way, of course).

Even though I wasn’t around in the age of mailing paper resumes myself, I do empathize with people who had been accustomed to the old system.  They told me that while companies were switching to applicant tracking systems, many were still giving the option to mail a paper resume.  Now that option is obsolete.  After all, the applicant tracking system makes life so much easier for the recruiter or hiring manager.

As a Human Resources Consultant, I do admit that I’m on the side of the applicant tracking system.  Of course, there are hiccups every not and then, but it’s much easier to overcome those hiccups than deal with thousands of paper resumes.  However, I do want to take a moment to mourn the death of mailing paper resumes for those who enjoyed printing it out on fancy paper and putting it in the mail.  If you’re one of those people who are mourning the loss, the bright side is that you can save money on the stamps it took to mail out all those resumes.

The applicant tracking system is just one piece of human resources technology that companies have embraced.    Many more human resources systems are making their mark and will become as commonplace as the applicant tracking system in the years to come.