From Deseret News archives:
Managers who are too nice often make the workplace worse
Avoiding an unpleasant confrontation now can lead to bigger problems in the future
"Instead of having one bad day and getting over it, it went on for literally years," he recalls. "You just kick the can a little farther down the road 'Let's have a meeting on this next month' anything you can try to keep from having that confrontation."
Anytime his employees bristled at his gentle criticisms, he'd change the subject: "You're getting to work on time; that's wonderful!" he'd say, "Never mind that your clients say you're difficult to work with."
What resulted was a dysfunctional department, he admits, "with no discipline, no confidence in where they stood, lots of scheming and kvetching, backstabbing." He gave up his management role. "I'm extremely happy not managing," he says.
"In a knowledge economy, where work is more complex and interdependent, people need feedback more what they particularly need feedback on are on things that are difficult to give: one's interpersonal style," says David Bradford, a lecturer at Stanford's Graduate School of Business.
John Hardcastle, formerly in financial reporting, was one of the countless people who, surveys show, want to learn and improve. But every time he had to submit a report and asked for feedback, his boss couldn't say anything negative. "He would visibly dance around the aspects of my reports that needed improvement," he says. "I never really knew exactly where I stood."
Bosses who want to avoid any discomfort, "use generalities so people really don't know what they're talking about," says Laura Collins, a human resources consultant. Instead, they tend toward one-size-fits-all comments: "pay a little more attention to detail" and "improve the way you communicate" and "develop better organization skills."
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