Are your conversations with your direct reports appropriate?
You already know not to make passes at your reports or to make them uncomfortable by revealing too much about your opinions on religion and politics. In this article I am going to go into some other aspects of the conversations you have with your direct reports.
You will be talking with your reports often. Being honest and vulnerable about yourself can be tremendously helpful in establishing a relationship of trust. Let your reports know the real you. Don’t try to be nice and try to please them. They will like you better if you share your honest feelings with them. You are a role model and you want to model honesty, openness and trust so that they are honest, open and trusting with you and with each other.
During the one on one meetings you have with your direct reports they can choose to talk to you about anything that is on their minds as long is it is not offensive or sexual. Most of the time your direct reports will want to discuss their current projects or technical problems and sometimes they will want to talk to you about other things. They might bring up at length how they are feeling about their pets death, politics, the fact that they did not sleep well, the fight they just had with their girlfriend and on and on. When this happens it is a good sign because it means that they trust you and know that you care about them. You can strengthen your relationship with them by listening.
Never force the one on one meetings on your reports. I schedule them weekly but if they want to cancel, reschedule or talk for just five minutes I don’t read anything into this or take it personally. This is their time to use or not use as they like. I once had a very quiet direct report who only wanted his one on ones to last five minutes but once or twice when he had issues in his personal life he shared very personal information with me and used the entire meeting time. I was grateful for his trust and very happy with our working relationship.
You, however, can’t talk to them at length about your pets death, politics, the fact that you did not sleep well, the fight you just had with your girlfriend and on and on. While its great to share some of what is going on with you such as you’re feeling tired today or to show them a picture of your dog but you cannot use them as your emotional support. It is your job to be there for them but its not their job to be there for you.
Don’t pick a favorite and make them feel special or cultivate drinking buddies on your team. Attention from a manager is a very powerful thing and you should be careful not to misuse this power. If you have favorites then team members will start to harbor resentments and the team environment will become toxic.
As a Manager you will know things you can’t share with them. It is inappropriate for you to be their friend even though you care about them a great deal. You also should not share what you think of another reports work or other workers problems with them.
If there are things that are worrying you that do not directly impact them don’t share these anxieties with your team. You should have other emotional support to help you cope.
Don’t hide things that impact them as this will erode their trust in you. Your direct reports are not stupid and they won’t like you if you unnecessarily with hold information from them even if your motivation to do so comes from a good place. Any news that may affect team members should be communicated as soon as possible and with complete honestly and with great care to prevent panic and stress from spreading within the team.
