Want Every Employee to Hate You With a Passion? Make Sure You Do This

This is a true story. The details have been adjusted to protect the not-so-innocent.

He was a micro-manager. In the morning, my boss would walk up to my desk and say:

“Is it done yet?”

“Why are you on that website?

“Are you working for yourself or for the company?”

“Do you even have a clue what you’re doing?”

I’m not making this up, because those are real questions he asked.

It was like he had a pencil in his hand and was jabbing it into my rib cage. I was managing a small team of writers and designers, and my leadership skills were–in full disclosure–still a little underdeveloped. I didn’t always react perfectly. My boss was using a well-worn strategy of criticism to get me to work harder, and the irony is that I did–for a while.

But I hated that job. I counted down the hours. And, when I finally did leave the company for good, it was mostly because of him. I wanted nothing to do with him anymore.

Have you ever had a boss like that?

It’s the person who only criticizes and never praises.

And yet, it’s worse than that. It’s a critical tone, a sideways glance, a disapproving expression. You feel criticized when he looks at you. There’s something about his tone and demeanor. (And, you might disagree with me on this, but in my experience, every overly critical boss I’ve ever had was a guy. That’s the truth.)

The problem is that critical bosses don’t understand what makes people tick.

We’re all human–except for that one person in accounting maybe. We don’t just thrive on praise, we survive on it. We love when people point out what we’ve done right. We look forward to those moments when the boss finally gives us a pat on the back…and gives us a slight bump in pay. Finally! What do we have to do, solve world peace and end hunger on the same day? When the boss notices us, we want to give everyone a high-five.

A critical boss also doesn’t realize that all of the finger pointing creates a circular pattern in our brains. So maybe we are terrible at our jobs. But the boss? She’s such a terrible leader she probably couldn’t run a fruit stand. Criticism creates an interesting dynamic. We model it. We think–maybe we’re not so great, but I can think of ten things the boss isn’t doing right. We react to criticism almost like it’s a mental suggestion (or perhaps a mind virus). It puts us in a critical frame of mind. Nothing seems up to our standards.

Praise does the opposite, of course. It makes us want to look for success in others.

Here’s the big challenge then. Will you finally learn how to show empathy as a boss? Your praise will become contagious. Employees will love you. What’s not to like about that?