The Most Important Trait of a People Manager

So many employers expect their employees to be honest and upfront with them.

But they’re playing a losing game.

Employees cannot be truly upfront unless they have nothing to lose.

When I was an employee, I straight up told my manager about how the office is ugly and demoralizing. I told my manager about what I didn’t like about whatever work arrangements that were going on at the time. They told me they appreciated my honesty.

And they really needed that honesty from someone within the staff so they can do some introspection about how things are managed.

But I was only able to do this because it’s not a big deal if they were somehow offended by my feedback and they decide to let me go. (I have my own business to fall back on.) It did not matter whether they appreciated my honesty or not—I just wanted some things to change so that I can continue working with them.

Before I go on further, I want to make it clear that I care about my job.

It is because I care, that I communicate my feedback to them, so that I can continue working with them.

If I really did not care, I would have just left. I wouldn’t have bothered saying anything.

From their reaction about how honest I was being, I think they found it surprising. They probably never, or rarely had someone who could just so casually tell them point-blank about what they didn’t want as an employee. I could tell and I know that they have lost quite a number of staff who would rather just jump ship instead of addressing the issues they were facing.

This is a very common problem faced by a lot of people managers.

They try to ask for feedback from their employee (or not), but in any case, barely anyone is going to tell them exactly what’s wrong. A feedback could be very easily misconstrued as a complaint, disobedience, misalignment of company values, and before you know it, it could spiral into a full-blown workplace drama, and the next thing they know, they’re out the door.

So employees bite their tongue.

Yet, so many people managers are upset when their employees hand in their resignation letter “out of the blue”. They think their employees should have brought up whatever issues they’re facing before deciding to apply elsewhere.

But come on, how realistic is that?

It’s all risk to the employee and none to the employer. Once an employer knows an employee is one foot out the door, will they really continue to see the employee as an asset to the company? Would they not see the employee as a risk that must be derisked?

Why would employees put themselves in that position? And even if you have a good relationship with your employees, they still have to consider the potential opinions from the people you report to.

There is no easy way to solicit feedback from employees.

And so a people manager must be intuitive enough to sense the landscape of what their employees are thinking.

They need to sense the motivation behind their employees’ work output: Are they working out of desperation, to maintain the status quo, or to achieve a bigger goal? Are the current workflows supportive to employees who are working from that motivation?

Don’t expect straight answers from employees when asked if everything is going well, but be intuitive to read between the lines.

Find out their motivation, and support them accordingly.

Not everyone is driven by the same thing.