HCI Blog

You may have heard one or more of these sentences if you ever had a boss which you feel was not a strong leader.

These five sentences should never be said by a boss:

1. “It’s work, it’s not supposed to be fun”

A boss who typically says this is a leader who does not enjoy his own line of work. This will generally demotivate people into believing that their own line of work should not make them remotely entertained or let them feel joy from work. Such a comment can be a major downturn to any employees morale.

2. “I don`t pay you to think”

Besides being completely disrespectful, this shows that in a way, the voice of the employee as well as their thoughts, don`t matter at all! It is important to listen to everyone within a company!

3. “This is the way we’ve always done it”

This literally translates into “Sorry, but we don`t like change”. A sentence such as this is a strong demotivator to free thinking and innovation.

4. “I don`t make the rules”

This, besides completely undermining your bosses own authority, may cause you to feel powerless.

5. “You figure it out”

This displays a lack of initiative and  a unwillingness to help other in their tasks. Offering a helping hand can go a long way!

BASED ON: Linkedin

Lack of honesty and trust are poisonous within a company. It can be that an employee is naturally like this because of their upbringing or perhaps life’s circumstances have made him this way.

But many times, employees become corrupt because of how things are conducted in your company.

Here are five ways in which you are possibly contributing to making employees unethical:

1. Making them be in the company of questionable coworkers

In a survey of 700 people, 80 percent of respondents reported they had been lied to, stolen from, cheated, or treated dishonestly by a colleague or supervisor.

Therefore, peer pressure is a factor which plays a strong role in the way your employees behave within the company. They can be forced and pressured into distorting procedures and rules, even if they are considered the most highly ethical and correct person in the world.

2. Temptation

Like tempting children with dessert before dinner, you shouldn’t make it easy on your employees if they chose a questionable conduct over a correct one. Demand that they be transparent and accountable with their dealings.

3. The right company with the wrong incentives

Monetary incentives may not be the best incentive you can give your employees. Establishing productivity goals aligned with money can result in a disastrous combination. Employees may begin to produce work in large quantities but with terrible quality.

4. Destructive culture

Some companies hold the end result as the most important aspect of a task, no matter what are the means utilized to reach your objective.

A company’s culture starts from the top and reaches the bottom. Executives must set the example to other employees on how to behave and conduct their activities, rather than simply leaving pretty words on a memo.

5. No time for a personal life

Lack of satisfaction with their job and little time for their personal life and needs can affect an employee very negatively, making them feel resentment towards how the company commands their lives.

It is central to make sure that your employees are happy and productive! Supervisors should create bonds with their team in order to feel their needs before they even get to ask for them.

BASED ON: TLNT

The pursuit for money leads individuals to do things which they may have never imagined themselves doing. Unethical acts which can be simple labeled as stupid are done with the only objective of acquiring more money. To many, this is the only objective in their personal and professional lives.

All over the news we occasionally read about big companies whose CEO and other high-ranking executive get involved in financial scandals or fiascos all for the sake of money.

Putting all of the pieces together leaves one major question unanswered: How is it that these people who are highly capable and intelligent leaders allow their judgment to become so clouded that they are willing to risk their names and their entire career for money? How much money is enough for them?

This phenomenon was more frequently observed during the 80’s in the United States, when stock brokering was a highly lucrative business if you knew how to play the game. The final objective of every stock broker was to amass as much capital as possible in order to spend on luxury goods. But, many of them were miserable in certain aspects.

Money can’t buy happiness, especially if you were unhappy before you started running after money. If you worry about small things now, you will worry about bigger things later when you have more money. This is part of the person’s individual nature, and not their state of poverty!

Here is where people tend to confuse things a lot. Of course, it is common in today’s modern society that the concepts of money and success are confused and even at times seen as synonymous.

Instead of looking for the easy way to the top (which can be seen as a lazy man’s path) you should seek for the joy of within the struggle. Nothing is more rewarding than reaping the fruits of your own toil.

So next time you read about a scandal or see a big time CEO being arrested for embezzlement or money laundering, stop and think to yourself: What is my relationship with success and wealth? Where do I want to reach? How will I get there?

Stop and remember: That CEO could’ve been you.

As previously talked about on our blog, ethics is something that must permeate entirely through a company, meaning that leaders must be a starting point as to setting a positive example too all those under their chain of leadership.

Overall, the difference that can be made when ethical leadership is put into practice can be astounding!

Here are six tips on how to exercise ethical leadership in practice:

• Analyze all the factors involved in making ethical decision: Know and admit that taking an ethical decision may not be as simples as it sounds. Make sure that all of the players involved participate and discuss openly all the possible scenarios and outcomes of making a certain decision.

• Make ethics and everyday business dealings go hand in hand: Ethics must be a modus operandi! It must be incorporated into everyday habits and practices, rather than looking pretty on paper.

• Make respect part of the company culture: Respect must become part of a value which is held highly in your company. Respecting others boundaries and opinions is required to have a respectful environment.

• Ethics must be practiced by all, no exceptions: Allow no excuses. Make sure that no one is exempted from meeting the ethical standards that are adopted. Make everyone accountable for their ethical (or unethical) behavior.

• Reward ethical behavior: Leaders must recognize positive ethical behavior. Other than simply exemplifying what would be a positive ethical behavior,  when a positive behavior is displayed it must be recognized.

• Expose ethics as a long term journey: Ethics is a long path which must be trailed for as long as someone is part of a company. Leaders must make it seem that ethics is a path which is followed on constantly and it is the leader’s role to put those who deviated from the path of ethics back on track.

BASED ON: Business News Daily

A bad manager can cause major damage to his team and the company as a whole. Poor management skills, inferior leadership capabilities and lack of commitment are factors which can affect all in a very negative form.

More specifically, the following occurs to each element within a company:

• Employees – They may feel unsupported, undirected, bullied, confused, unmotivated, unappreciated, frustrated, and constantly questioning, “is it me?” So they are not engaged and they are not productive.

• Executives – They will begin to lack confidence in the team which they depend on and have to make up for the poor work done by managers, as well as their own work.
• Business – The pace at which the business functions is altered. It may become sluggish and inefficient, resulting in financial setbacks for example.

Research shows that the having a good manager can influence business positively more than many others factors:

• Naming a superior manager can make all the difference to businesses.

• Poor managers can cost billions of dollars per year to companies. Having too many of them can result in a company shutting down.

• Businesses with the best managers will thrive and have a significant competitive advantage.

• The best managers may seem rare to find at times. Here are some characteristics a good manager must have:

• Motivate everyone around them to engage in the company’s vision.
• They have the ability to overcome adversity.
• They create a culture of clear accountability.
• They build relationships that create trust, open dialogue, and full transparency.
• They make decisions that are based on productivity, not politics.

Improve your managers

Since it may be difficult to find the perfect manager for your company, a solution is to improve the managers you already have inside. Usually, average managers may be lacking orientation and the correct set of tools to become even better at what they do.

The most important thing a manager can do is to build a highly capable team beneath them — a team that is able to do what the business needs now and in the future.

This is where coaching comes in!

Through a well-structured coaching program, managers can build themselves to become highly efficient in their positions. Therefore, he will also become a better leader, making his team respond more efficiently to the tasks they are delegated.

Based on: TLNT