The resounding answer to this question that is asked for failing businesses is ALWAYS:

Bad management!

How can I make such a statement?

• Bad managers hire bad staff.

• Bad managers don't manage, they sit with a title and take no action to rectify problems.

• Bad managers are so ignorant that they don't even know what is wrong with their business.

• Bad managers cause staff shortage and staff turnover.

• Unhappy employees are unhappy because of management.

Have you ever wanted to do this to your boss or manager?

Above and lead image by Pixabay user: mohamed_hassan

I have 🤣 sometimes you get to a point where you wonder WHY you even go to work because all it does is provide a bad environment for your mental health. It's a breeding ground of depression.

I am fortunate that when I go home, I have the luxury of seeing Mom, Dad and my Furbabies...spending time with them. It reinforces the reason I go to work every day.

Have you ever worked for a good boss?

Currently I work for a very good boss and have an excellent relationship where I am able to speak my feelings openly. However, because of the position I am in, I end up doing things that are wayyyy out of my job scope. Although my boss is a wonderful person (for the most part) management skills are lacking. Sadly though, I have little control over things out of my department. So I take on tasks that are not my function for the simple reason that nobody is going to do them, they need to be done and if they aren't, I can't do my job.

The work environment is extremely stressful and people are unhappy. I'm unhappy too, but staying at the company right now is the lesser of the evils when I compare it with leaving. I have also realized that you can only fix things when people in charge want to fix things. You know the old saying of leading the horse to water but you can't make it drink? Well some people say you should give it salt. I don't know how to give my boss salt. I've tried.

I've tried everything:

• Logical explanations

• Discussions

• Providing facts and figures

• Providing a clear way forward

• Making light of situations to get the point across

• Losing my temper

I've tried it all. Sadly it's fallen on deaf ears, and for me, I've now accepted that I can only do what I can do. If no action is taken by the people who need to act, then nothing will change and the changes required are way out of my authority on the job.

It used to keep me awake at night

I used to feel like I was failing. I went back and read a post by @Fexonice1 where he spoke about the passion for a business and how much motivation he gave me in the post. I realized then that I had lost my spark, I tried to regain my spark by pushing forward and trying new strategies to improve things here. I failed.

I'm OK with that now, because after many weeks I realized that it's not ME that has failed. It's management. I have realized that I need to stop worrying about the things I can't change and focus on fixing everything I can to the best of my ability. Yes, it makes my job harder, but I WILL succeed. No matter what I have to do. I'll get there and make a success of this!

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What it takes to be a good manager

• Good listener

If you are not listening to your colleagues or your team, how do you expect to succeed? The people who are physically doing the work are the best indicators of how to fix your problems. Just because you're a "manager" doesn't mean you know everything. You need to listen and be attentive to the needs of the people you have in your department. If you breed unhappiness in the work place you will breed low work output and people will work against you rather than striving for achieving a common goal of success.

• Fairness

It doesn't matter if you've become friends with your colleagues. If they screw up you need to be fair and fix the problem. Everyone needs to be treated equally and with same respect and same disciplinary code. By penalizing some people and not others for the same mistake you will have people leave, you will cause friction with colleagues and your business will fail.

• Ability to prioritize

BUSINESS matters! Businesses don't run themselves. Stop doing your own things while you're at work. You're at work and getting paid to work just like the employees who report to you. You're not special, you're not exempt from working just because you have a title. Your employees will follow your lead, the more they see you playing on Facebook at work and having the attention span of a rock, the more you will end up with zero work output because they will lose respect for you.

• Ability to cut your losses

Realize when something in the business isn't working, and realize when your staff are not doing what needs to be done AND FIX IT! The good employees watch you doing nothing to correct the employees who do nothing and they become demotivated. Why should a few good people carry the burden of the company because you lack a backbone to correct the failings?

• Focus

It's not helpful when your employees are swamped and you continue to throw irrelevant nonsense at them, for example, from the news, from social media, from a newspaper. We don't care. Do you get that? We are trying to keep our heads above water and really have no desire for the small talk when we are trying to answer 2 phones and 400 emails.

• Ambition

Why are you happy to just let yourself float and coast? If you lack ambition do you really expect to make a success of anything? Why do you settle for mediocrity and never aim for achieving more? That's the attitude you are breeding in your business.

What about you?

Have you managed to fix a failing work environment? Have you had success in turning poor managers into good managers?

Would love to hear your work experiences in the comments!

Happy Friday everyone 🤣 it's another extra long day of work for me but this should be the last one like this!