There are many ways to kill employee engagement. Here’s a possible list:
- Do not communicate about the goals, vision, …
- Never give feedback about what people are doing.
- Check every move people make.
- Put yourself first
- Don’t apply the team/company rules on yourself
- Be dishonest.
- Make them ask for permission before doing something.
- Show no interest whatsoever in who people are.
- Talk negatively about the company.
- Do not care for wellbeing
- Put people under pressure as motivation technique.
- Leave the office before other people do (every day).
- Think it’s normal that people put in extra hours.
- Allow incompetent and disengaged people to stay on board.
- Make arbitrary decisions, don’t bother to explain them.
- Do not allow people to benefit from the company’s flexible work arrangements.
- Tell people they’re useless.
- Don’t show vulnerability, don’t allow others to show vulnerability.
- Never make exceptions.
- Always make exceptions.
- Hire people who are weaker than you.
- Insist on people doing things your way.
- Never surprise them.
- Don’t show respect for your customer.
- Talk negatively about your boss.
- Never apologize for things you’ve done.
- Never say thank you.
- Be a micro-manager.
- Measure everything.
- Rank & yank people.
- Don’t have team meetings. Do everything in one-to-one meetings.
- Don’t keep your promises.
- Forbid people to show emotions at work.
- Never talk informally.
- Manage people with to-do-lists.
- Don’t show courage in difficult times.
- Forget birthdays (of some members of your team).
- Hide behind the mandate that you (do not) have.
- Hide things from people.
- Don’t look into their eyes.
- Never help them when they are in trouble.
- Say to people you’d like to fire them, but that HR won’t let you.
- Never defend them when they are under attack.
- Don’t make use of their talents and strengths.
- Write them emails at night, asking for answers by 8:00 am.
- Keep files on them, and make sure they know this. Keep track of everything they do.
- Blame them publicly.
- Think the H in HR stands for Humiliation.
- Think you’re irreplaceable.
- Never ask how people feel.
- Take the credit for what they’ve done right.
- Be indifferent to their proposals and ideas.
- Think you have (to have) all the answers, and if you don’t, make them up.
- Ask people to sty late (Hey, you’ve ordered the pizza).
- Build a culture of internal competition (win-lose).
- Don’t trust people.
In one word: be a lousy leader.
In once sentence: “Feed the Vicious Circle and let Creative Interchange starve to death.”
Conclusion: A lousy Leader, feeds the Vicious Circle and doesn’t live Creative Interchange Process. Rembember “The [CI] Process IS the Leader!”