Your Employees Are Not Your Children

Domain: Managing Others - Estimated reading time: 3 minutes

There is an unfortunate tendency for some managers to treat or even refer to their employees as they would their children. The unintended suggestion here is that the employee is not sufficiently capable of working autonomously and requires close guidance and direction from their manager in order to succeed.

This is similar to the misconceived idea that teams or organizations are "like family". We can like and get along with our teams without labeling them as family and we can support our employees without using parental tactics.

Think about it another way. We certainly don't think of ourselves as children to our boss, do we? Let's keep that same mindset with our teams. Here are a few strategies to help you avoid sending the wrong message…

Treat them as a colleague

When you feel the temptation to offer them "course-correction", adopt the mindset that you are simply two working professionals with different responsibilities. This means not over-protecting them. We don't often feel the need to be super protective of our peers because we see them as capable professionals. If you wouldn’t give the feedback to your peer, re-consider giving it to your employee.

Of course, there are some situations where you'll need to wear your managerial title and it also doesn't mean we don't support our employees. It simply means that we don't jump-in unnecessarily when they are capable of navigating a situation on their own.

Show respect

For those times where we do need to exercise our managerial responsibilities, it's important that we do so with common respect and decency. While your reports are not your children, they are someone's child. Treat them with the respect and humanity that you'd want for your child. This means not talking down to them or demeaning them when mistakes are made.

Another way to show respect is to avoid usurping their authority. This is especially true if they have directs of their own. Let them assume the responsibility that comes with their role.

Honor their autonomy

It's also important to have your team run with their own projects and complete their work with professional autonomy. Stepping-in to "correct" them undermines their natural skills and abilities. This can be more damaging than the perceived mistake you were trying to prevent in the first place. Trust them to get the work done. You can provide the what, why and when of a task but leave the "how" up to them.

This also means not overly-scrutinizing smaller trivial things like requiring approval for PTO requests or requiring specific schedules without business reason. The feasibility of this depends on the nature of the role, but I recommend giving employees flexibility in these areas whenever possible.

Don’t solve problems for them

A great way to treat your employees like professional colleagues is to allow them to solve their own problems. We discussed this in-depth last week but encouraging your employees to solve their own problems and address their own mistakes is a direct way to avoid the mistake of "over-protecting" them. Make it clear that you trust them and their ability to problem-solve effectively.

When in doubt…

Consider whether your actions reflect the way you want your boss to treat you. If you don't want your boss doing it to you, don't do it to your team.

Thank you for reading. My hope is always that you've found something helpful and easy to implement.

This week’s action items:

1. When possible, think about your direct reports as colleagues with different responsibilities.

2. Demonstrate professional courtesy and respect.

3. Honor their autonomy by letting them decide how to approach their responsibilities.

4. Encourage your team to solve their own problems and address their mistakes.

5. When in doubt, manage your team in the same way that you would have your boss manage you.