There is a tender emotional area that I know I’ve had to look at in myself, and this area comes up all the time for the folks in my workshops on managing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It’s when we have a deep desire to be liked by an employee<\/strong>, who we personally like, but has performance problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It’s one of the big dynamics that keep us separated from our ability to effectively manage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We can spin around in this area in a number of ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As when we try extra hard to be nice and reasonable hoping the employee will feel our efforts and change their behavior. I call this the “smile my way out of it” <\/em>dynamic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Or maybe rationalize the negative impacts happening to the co-op and team by our employee by thinking – oh, they mean so well and are such a nice person, we can just put up with it. The “don’t look at it and it will go away” <\/em>dynamic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Well, believe me from my experience, the only place any of these problems are “going away\u201d is<\/em> in our own minds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We work in a fast-paced retail environment. Nothing stands still – problems grow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When we prioritize what an employee thinks about us over preventing negative impacts to the co-op and team, we are off track. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We are now separated from our tools of management and separated from being the manager who we want to become.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wanting to be liked is ground zero of basic human emotional needs – we’re not alone; however, managing is a craft that we work on that helps us deal with the swirl of these emotions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A craft that, if diligently worked on, will increase our ability to tolerate and work constructively in spite of our inner discomforting emotions. A craft that creates forms and structures that prioritizes successful outcomes for our co-ops while navigating our personal emotional needs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We need to certainly acknowledge our own emotions. And once acknowledged, we can learn to process and connect to staff with our managing tools that build effectiveness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n My encouragement is for us all to learn the foundational steps that will help us navigate these tricky corners of managing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Having sound, direct conversations that are based on expectations, facts and impacts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Having clear expectations that clearly reveal the gap between those expectations and behavior.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not trying to change or fix an employee. Instead, providing them with the information they need, delivered with neutrality and grace, so they can make decisions for themselves on navigating their employment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If we’ve been clear and reasonable and the employee is signaling “I’m not liking you”, <\/em>we are seeing their struggle to take responsibility for themselves. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We need to shift our focus away from “needing to be liked” toward \u201chow can I manage and help an employee who is struggling. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The beginning of the work is really inside us – just being willing to look at ourselves and see if this dynamic of wanting to be liked is interfering with our managing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As I said, it’s a tender area and as I also said, to be sure – you’re not alone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There is a tender emotional area that I know I’ve had to look at in myself, and this area comes up all the time for the folks in my workshops on managing. It’s when we have a deep desire to be liked by an employee, who we personally like, but has performance problems. It’s one of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2370,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"1080","footnotes":""},"project_category":[3],"project_tag":[],"class_list":["post-2369","project","type-project","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","project_category-m2m"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/merrimanmanagementsupport.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/project\/2369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/merrimanmanagementsupport.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/project"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/merrimanmanagementsupport.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/project"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/merrimanmanagementsupport.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/merrimanmanagementsupport.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2369"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/merrimanmanagementsupport.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/project\/2369\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2371,"href":"http:\/\/merrimanmanagementsupport.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/project\/2369\/revisions\/2371"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/merrimanmanagementsupport.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/merrimanmanagementsupport.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"project_category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/merrimanmanagementsupport.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/project_category?post=2369"},{"taxonomy":"project_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/merrimanmanagementsupport.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/project_tag?post=2369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}