You are absolutely convinced that you have the worst staff in the world.  It seems that they are the source of all your frustrations.  You find yourself dealing with the same issues, having the same conversations, and enduring an endless cycle of corrective meetings that produce little results.  As you sit in your office wondering what horrors the new day will bring, you reflect upon several factors causing you stress as a manager:      

• The process of following up with your team members to get status reports on pending projects or to ensure the projects are completed by a certain date

• Certain team members who constantly complain about every organizational change and are never satisfied

• The projects handled by your staff are rarely completed to your specifications

• Some team members are difficult to work with and their presence is almost toxic to the workplace

• You feel that some of your employees exist for the sole purpose of bringing you headaches and frustration.

As a manager, it’s very easy to blame your employees as the source of all dysfunction in the workplace.  The problem with this perspective is that it ignores a basic (and critical) element of leadership philosophy.  To put it simply, almost every problem you are experiencing as it relates to your team is a management issue and NOT and employee issue.  Now, before you get angry and toss your computer, consider this point.  The basic element of leadership dictates that the role of a leader is to intentionally influence a specific result through others.  In essence, your team members become that “vehicle” by which you achieve certain goals or objectives.  Therefore, if you don’t like the direction of the vehicle, you can’t blame the car.  The only logical conclusion would be to blame the driver for directing the vehicle to that destination (whether intentional or unintentional).  This simply means that your staff is merely a reflection of your action or inaction concerning a range of issues.  So, before you get angry at them, you must first assess your leadership ability to determine if your managerial style or processes are producing the types of results that you DON’T want. For example, if you regularly allow team members to finish projects after the expected completion date, then you are creating an environment that supports late assignments.  Now, this post was not written to indicate that your team members are blameless for their actions or behavior (which should definitely be addressed), but it is a reminder that you should first analyze your processes before determining how others are at fault.  The brief list below lists three areas where you can begin to change your processes to influence a desired result.

• Project Completion – It’s important to give clear instructions as it relates to who must complete a project, critical dates on the project timeline, and when the project must be completed.

• Clear Expectations – If you want clear outcomes then you must articulate clear expectations to your team.  If you don’t clearly indicate your expectations, then your expectations don’t exist.   

• Assessments – It’s important to have periodic assessments with your employees for the purposing of encouraging/rewarding great performance.  Assessments are also a great method to identify and correct performance related issues while they are still small.  Assessments should occur more than once a year and should be presented in a positive light as opposed to an awkward and negative event that only highlights what the employee did wrong.

What processes will you change to influence a different outcome?  Share it in the comments section below.  Also, if you enjoyed this post, share it with your community using the social media icons found on this page