Being an over meticulous boss is sufficient to score an annoying point.  Being overly micromanaging the team is a sure walk over for most staffs under him to give him the red card!  However, unknowingly to these management, they can be annoying from another set of criteria.  Are they being stubborn to ideas or clueless of what’s going on in the organisation?  Or are they being too personal and self-centred of themselves that leaved their staff feeling annoyed?  Find out more with our continued part two post here!

• “What’s going on” bosses – This type of bosses do not have any clue of whatsoever is going on in the organisation.  They just live the day as it is and doesn’t plan for tomorrow.  In the first place, how did he become the boss?
• Being stubborn – These bosses just resistant to any suggestions from the ground.  They believed what they said are always right.  They reject ideas from the staffs.
• Avoiding things that are critical to the entire productivity of the organisation – The staff have pointed out critical improvements to the process to the overall productivity of the organisation.  However, the bosses are resisting accepting the new proposals.
• Shifting non-valuable work to the staff – Admin work are shifted to the staffs to do.  You do not have a choice if you are the admin staff.  However, if you are not, are you loosing the chance to do better things out there?
• Taking credit for staff’s work – This is the worst thing that can happen to a staff.  Their credit is being taken away by their boss.  What’s worst, not a single appreciation and acknowledgement is given to the staff.  The staff may consider resigning the job!
• Keep talking about their family stuff – Self-centred series number one.  The topic circles around whatever happened in your boss’s family.  Such as kids going to school, how smart are the kids, how adoring is your house pet, how good is the nanny, etc.  Please refrain from doing this, you will only bored people down.
• Keep talking about their experiences on (not anything) everything – Self-centred series number two.  The topic circles around how good the boss is at handling things, how he learn things so fast, how he developed the new process that shaped the organisation, etc.  The staff will know how good you are by working with you and not by hearing your stories
• Keep cracking cold jokes – Please do not torture your staff with cold jokes.  They are put into the position to patronise your stupid jokes.  Give them a break on this!  If it isn’t funny, don’t even mention it.  Your staff won’t be in a fix to find some means to respond to the dumb jokes.

If you are such superior, it’s time to review yourself as a superior.  This goes for those who often take credits away from their staff!  Give gratitude and acknowledge your staff’s work.  Reward as and when needed.  If you like to blabber about your own stories, remember that the other party may not be really interested in what you are saying.  Find someone that is interested to hear it instead.  This will at least bring the annoyance level of your staff down!

1. Be consistent in your expectations and delivery – This will determine your integrity and consistency.  Your team members would not want to work with a leader that is always unpredictable.
2. Communicate positively and firm – Avoid negative remarks that will only will wash the moral from your staff.  What you need is a highly motivated team that deliver wonder results right.  Not a team of lousy feeling employees waiting for the next pay cheque to come.
3. Communicate regularly with your stakeholders – That includes your employees. You need to keep them updated of progress.   When it comes to planning, as much as possible, involve your employees in day to day decisions and long term planning.  Give them a sense of ownership and belonging.  Everyone is important in the organisation!
4. Intervene when something is wrong – If you feel something is wrong with certain task; find out more of the problem.  Terminate the task if that is an option.  Sometimes, its better to terminate the task then to find alternatives to resolve ti.
5. Teach your team members how to fish and not show them the fish – You will be tire out one day if you keep showing them the fish.  Teach your team members ways to be productivity, let them learn new techniques (that works for them).  Their productivity will be your input for your personal productivity.
6. Determine your staff abilities – Assess each and every one of your team members.  Some maybe strong in certain areas of work while others may not be.  Let’s face it; you can’t get the best people from your recruitment exercises every time.  Therefore, it’s best to optimize your staff by understanding what they are best at and grouping them together to boost productivity!
7. Create a pleasant, safe working environment – You do not you’re your employees to come to office with a worried mind.  Everyone is happy to come to office and no one is hurt.
8. Constantly evaluate your operating procedures and fine tune it for improvements – Processes do not dictate how you should do things.  Processes are designed by human beings in first place so do not allow processes to dictate your innovation.  Constantly find out the loop holes or areas of improvement in your organisation process so that your team can work more efficiently.

1. Have a vision for your team and organisation – You know what is best for your team.  You should know what your team will become or what you like the team to become in the next 2 – 5 years.  You want to get there.  You know the objective and outcome of what you are doing.  You know the mission statement of the team.  You know how the team should function.  It can be an overview picture but that is sufficient for you.
2. Influence your vision on your team and organisation – The next thing you want to do is to influence this strong vision that you have to your team members.  You want them to feel (at least) you.  You want them to know what’s going on and how to get to the objective together as a team.
3. Lead by example – If you want to convince your team members to follow you, you’ve got to lead by example and show them that things can be done.  You want to make them feel that you are with them throughout the task giving them support too!
4. Stick with your principles no matter what – Whatever circumstances and situations you reach, you have to stick with your guiding principle.  Your team member will assess you if you have the integrity to stick with your principles.  If you do not, they loose trust in you that you do not have a guiding principle to work on.  Do not give in to external threats
5. Honour what you say – Honour all the commitments and promises you made to your team members.  A broken promise you made before will only pull you away from being a honourable leader in the eyes of your team members.  Your team members will be depending on how you honour your promises make.  This is the trust they have in you.  If you are unable to honour what you committed, you are breaking that trust from them.
6. Be firm and not aggressive – Be firm with what you want to achieve.  However, avoid being aggressive.  Your team members will not want to work under a tyrant boss.  There are various ways to be firm and influence your team members to get the work done.  But definitely, the use of aggression shall be left to the last few alternatives.

How do you define a great leader then?  Are you troubled of finding ways to become one?  Or are you working under a leader that doesn’t have leadership quality instead?  Maybe he is a manager not a leader?  Tell us more!

1. You feel that there is a high level of favoritism in the work place and is working at your disadvantage.
2. You do not like the competition at work and you can’t keep up the pace with other co-workers.
3. You do not like the work environment due to a competitive culture that promotes defending each individual’s premises and interest.
4. You are working in an environment with colleagues that belong to the two-headed snake cult.
5. You are working in a work environment that does not satisfy your hunger for challenges.
6. You are working in a work environment that restricts your progress through their rules and regulations.
7. You do not like the industry.
8. You do not like the culture of the company where they demand you to work your entire life and soul for them or even die for them!
9. You do not like the scope of work
10. Your scope of work changes over time without your consent
11. Your boss do not have any interest of you in mind
12. Your boss demands you to work like a machine
13. You are working long hours as your boss is treating you like a machine
14. You are underpaid even you are working long hours and overtime
15. Your health is deteriorating because of the long hours of work
16. You are working with a lot of unfriendly customers and users that are demanding.

Have any of the above answered your question of unhappiness in the office?  Or if you are an employer or manager, do you feel the negative sentiment at work and these are the reasons behind this negative sentiment?

1. You are (or you feel) underpaid as per what the market rate is offering.
2. You feel that you are not compensated as per what the title or position you are holding should be given.
3. You feel that you should be given a better performance bonus after a year end appraisal review.
4. You feel that the company should be giving a better organisation performance bonus because of the increased sales orders however they didn’t.
5. You feel that office politics is intoxicating the entire organisation at all levels (even at senior management level) and you are sick of it.
6. You are not doing something you like at work.
7. You are forced to do something that is against your principles
8. You do not have the freedom to choose what you can work on
9. You do not like bureaucracy and red tapes
10. You feel the entire system is unfair
11. You feel your boss is unfair
12. Your boss lacks judgement
13. You feel that you deserved better appraisal
14. Your boss lacks leadership and unable to give you clear directions of the team.
15. Your boss does not appreciate your effort and suggestion
16. Your boss is a boot-licker to his stakeholders such as his superior and his customers which he can do things that are dignity defying and against your principles

Have any of the above answered your question of unhappiness in the office?  Or if you are an employer or manager, do you feel the negative sentiment at work and these are the reasons behind this negative sentiment?

A leader, we defined here is a person that can lead the team to his objective.  He may not know the steps to reach there but he knows where the team should be heading to.  He has the objective in mind and will clear obstacles with the team to get to the final destination.  Leaders inspire their subordinates to work hard for them.  He knows that he needs support from his team to get to the objective.  He influences and aligns objective with his subordinates.  In order to influence them, he knows he needs to understand the interests of his subordinates.

True leaders are responsible for their actions taken.  He will justify and defend his subordinates for their mistakes made if appropriate.  He has assess and taken responsibilities for their actions.  A true leader will also lead by example.  He knows the best way to influence people is to show that he can do it himself.

On the other hand, a manager, where we defined it, is not the manager title you see everywhere.  We refer the manager as the working style your boss employs in his management tasks.  Our definition of managers is that they treat you like a resource.  They managed you like a resource in terms of schedule, accountability, risks, effort and commitment to a task.  They can be task-oriented or goal-oriented where they are just too concerned with the outcome of a task.  Their concern may be ensuring additional personnel at the data centre for the server maintenance.  Or ensuring the statistic report is delivered on the coming Monday (where today is Friday).   They can also call you on the weekend to ask you to check your mailbox and respond to an email… Well, generally, they do not care about your welfare or interests.

A manager may or may not take responsibilities directly.  He may shift responsibilities to his subordinates if they make mistakes.  He doesn’t lead by example.  He “outsources” unimportant tasks to his subordinates.

In this modern era, it is not easy finding true leaders anymore.  Most of the management are too concerned with results or getting things done.  The expense of having immediate results is dissatisfied employees or the blinded vision of the organization.  They don’t define directions for the team anymore and oversee the welfare and interests aspect of their employee.  Personally, we’ve come across more managers than leaders.  Where they are more concerned about the outcome or reducing risks than defining the direction the team needs to head to.

Understanding this makes a big difference in your work.  Why?  You will know how much effort you should put in for your boss.  You will know if it is worthwhile to go an extra mile for the boss.  On the other hand, knowing how your boss operates brings another benefit.  You will be able to align expectations between you and him by understanding him more (You factor) thus delivering results that he wants.

What is the leadership style that you yearn to have?  Do you belong to a true leader or a manager?