My good friend Jess gave up on her job because she could no longer take the stress of working with her boss. It was impacting everything from her health to her family.
Many people are passive; they are quiet about their frustration, stress or disappointment. Some leave for a better opportunity. Many leave for any opportunity or for nothing at all. They just have to get away from a dysfunctional stressful situation. What makes a good person resign?
The number one thing I hear people who couldn’t take it any more talk about is that they feel they can’t trust someone of influence in the workplace.
Here are six examples of ways that people drive good employees away:
1. They omit important information. Thinking that information is power they won’t tell their co-worker or the people working for them all of the information they need when they are assigned a project. The employee finds out after spending too much time on something that the job could have been done better and faster if only they knew what the boss said to the person passing along the instructions when the project was assigned.
2. They don’t tell the truth and they repeatedly get caught in a lie. And no one does anything about it.
3. They speak negatively of people. When this happens the employee wonders what is being said about them when they are not in the room.
4.Building relationships is not important. They don’t even try to know something about the people they are working with. I know someone who was called by the wrong name. No matter how many times she corrected her boss it go brushed off with the comment “I’m awful with names.”
5. They hold off on giving positive feedback. They won’t say “good job” at the moment it happens or in front of anyone else. They wait until an annual review or they say it in passing weeks after the event it makes people feel like the praise wasn’t really genuine.
6. They use silence as a weapon. Are weapons appropriate? No. But silence is a powerful one. Early in my career I worked for someone who would stop speaking to his staff for weeks at a time when something didn’t go his way. It created a punishing environment that drove talented people away.
Part of developing good employees is to model respectful communication that fosters an atmosphere to make people feel valued. Otherwise – good people are driven away.