Toxic employees can be as bad if not worse than a bad manager or even inept leadership. Toxic employees are typically overconfident and selfish and generally understand how to walk the fine line between right and wrong to ensure they do not fall foul of company policy. They generally do not cooperate with others or…
Stress
Work-Life Balance
Work-life balance refers to the equilibrium between work and personal life demands. It is about allocating time, energy, and attention to professional and personal pursuits to avoid excessive stress, burnout, and neglect of personal well-being. Achieving a work-life balance does not necessarily mean spending equal time on work and personal activities but instead finding a…
Gaslighting at Work
Gas lighting is more common than most people can appreciate. You will see it in your personal life, but more and more, you will either witness gaslighting at work or suffer the consequences of being a victim of gaslighting. We will look at gaslighting in this article from a workplace point of view, and once…
How to Motivate unmotivated Employees
How to Motivate unmotivated Employees follows very closely to employee engagement which I have written about before. Engagement is about having a sense of purpose, ownership, and commitment to the company. Motivation, however, is the willpower and drive to act on those feelings. Engaged employees will be highly motivated and generate the results managers look…
Leadership and Management
Is there a difference between leadership and management? Some of you may agree that you “lead” people and “manage” things. Or is leading and managing a dynamic and symbiotic relationship? Admiral Grace Hopper coined the phrase, “You manage things; you lead people.” a military background tried and tested that phrase. This article looks at the…
Employee Re-Engagement
Employee re-engagement (make them happy) is not difficult once you recognise it is required. As a director, you may need to re-organise management because we all know that “People leave managers, not jobs”. Having looked at various companies and advised them on engagement, most of the time, it has been due to bad managers. Once…
Chain of Command
People who know me understand that the chain of command is the only management structure for me. It is the only management structure that has stood the rigours of time, proven itself robust, and I am confident will outlive any “woke” management system that falls out of the back of some student union bar somewhere…
Bad Customers
Bad customers are becoming more common. People are behaving more entitled to the point where the customers act more entitled than the servers and customer service agents. Last week I wrote about bad customer service and that, in my opinion, it is getting a great deal worse in the UK especially. Coming from overseas after…
Customer Service Attitude
If you have ever travelled to the USA, you know that customer service attitudes are generally excellent, especially in the service industry. Why? Because almost all service industry employees rely heavily on their tips as part of their income. So, no matter how bad a day you are having, you will put on a smile…
Bad Management and Office Assassins – A reason to be self-employed
Bad Managers, Bad management and office assassins? It sounds like Game of Thrones! To be honest, I believe every company in the west is like this. You have your different sections, the self-imposed leaders and their loyal assassins. I left the British RAF in 2001. It was my first job and had been from the…