5 lies every manager tells themselves.

Speaker A: Do you ever catch yourself lying to yourself? I know you do. I assume you do. I know I do. But in this podcast, I want to share five lies that every manager tells themselves at some point. Welcome to the no Nonsense podcast. On this show, I help new managers become more confident leaders. And I do this with no nonsense sense, if that makes any sense. And assuming it does, get your caffeine because the show will start. Every now and again. Managers. Oh, banging the mic. Uh, every now and again, managers and people in general, we lie to ourselves. We tell ourselves that it's not that bad. We tell ourselves that no, this is okay, when in reality it's not. So in the today's podcast, I. I want to talk about five lies that as m. As a m. Manager, I've told myself and I've heard other people when I have clients, coaching clients, one on one consultations. These are some of the lies that are consistently popping up. And I believe they are having a huge impact on how you're able to lead or how you're not able to lead as good as you could. The first one is that you schedule a one on one meeting with an employee and you feel like, okay, something's come up, I need to reschedule. It's not a big deal. And on the surface you're thinking, well, I have important things to do because I'm, um, the boss, and something's come up. What the lie is, is that it's not okay. It's not okay with the employee who has prepared for your one on one meeting. It's not prepared, uh, it's not okay for the team member who is nervous or excited or looking forward to this opportunity to have your undivided attention. And what really happens is that when you've rescheduled your one on one meeting with your employee, the absolute crystal clear message that you've sent is that your time as an employee is not as important as something else that's come up. Now, of course, this may be true, but this is not something that we want our employees to feel. This is not something that helps our employees feel, uh, needed, feel they're important. So as much as you may feel it's okay to reschedule this one on one, I highly recommend that you reconsider. I beg you to consider or to think about how you could reschedule the other. Call the other appointment, bump it back, bump it ahead, whatever it might be. It's a un. Now, listen, life happens. I get it. Emergencies come up, I get it. But at the end of the day I want you to make sure that you understand it is very important. If you have to reschedule somebody's one on one meeting, it sends a message. So if it has to happen, I need you to make sure that that message, that the employee knows they are of importance and that you are truly sorry. Don't just be like, meh m. We'll get to it tomorrow. You're definitely setting the wrong tone. The next lie that every person, every manager has told themselves is that my boss knows how hard we're working. My boss knows the wins that we've had. No, they don't. They're too busy doing their job and they're under the assumption that you're doing your job, which is great, they're leaving you alone. But at some point you gotta make sure that your boss understands or can can see the wins that you and your team have had. Because if they can't see it, if they don't hear about it. It's like the tree falling in the forest. Does it make a sound? Did you actually accomplish anything? So this again, this isn't to. Not again. I didn't say this. You know, sometimes you just get in the habit of saying something and again, seems to be my thing. But make sure that you keep notes on all of your accomplishments. And this is going to be for two reasons. First, as you have your own one on one meetings with your boss, as you have opportunities to share what your team has done, you want to make sure you have a record of it so that you are quick to say, you know, we accomplished this. I'm really happy that the team was able to get this done. This isn't to brag necessarily about yourself, but it's to bring awareness as to how successful you and your team is. The second reason you want to be able to have notes of these, these wins, these accomplishments is that when it's time for your review, to get more money, when it's time for a potential promotion, to get more money. Not that this is all about money, but when you are looking to even get a new job to get more money, what you need is you need a winning track record. When you sit down at any of these meetings, interviews, and they say, and they will, what accomplishments have you had? What are you most proud of? What are you working on? You have a list of wins, you have a list of things that you've done or your team has done successfully under your guidance. This is so important because people don't know your wins, they don't know your track record. And when you're on the spot, it's hard for you to remember all the things that you've done. So as you have wins every day, as you have wins every week, have a place to document them, have a place where you can go to refresh your memory. And this is one of the things that kind of just popped into my melon right now is that sometimes as leaders, we really just keep getting beat down. We can't find a win to save our lives. The life is just, uh, it's difficult. The process, the work environment, whatever it might be, might be hard. If you have a document of all of your wins, that can really significantly change your mood. It can make you remember and help you realize how successful your team has been under your guidance. So again, sometimes you get just, see, I just said again, again, again, again. Anyway, sometimes you just get that feeling of getting beat down constantly and we need to build ourselves up. Nobody's going to save you other than you. The next lie. This is number three if you're keeping count. The next lie that leaders or managers will tell themselves is that when they have a staff member quit, they immediately say, well, that staff member, they left for a better job. It's not my issue. Wrong. Yes, they may have left for more money, but what we have to understand is that for the most part, it's hard for people to leave a job. It's hard to leave the devil you know, for the devil you don't know. So if somebody has left, there is a possibility that they left because of you. Yes, they may be getting a better job, they may be getting more money, but that could be in spite of you. That could be because you have done something or have not done something that has made them want to leave, that has made them say, you know what, I need to consider my, my options out here. I'm not telling you that you are the sole reason, and I'm not telling you that without question, you've been a crappy boss and you made them leave. But what you need to do is not lie to yourself. You need to be open with yourself and ask, is there something that you've done? Is there something that you haven't done that's made them want to leave? Because at the end of the day, a lot of people would rather just stay at the job, get their annual performance reviews with hopefully a raise, and enjoy the status quo. So you have to keep that in mind. The fourth thing that you must know, or sorry, I'm reading this wrong, but the fourth lie that you may tell yourself is that you know what your customer wants. Now, yes, you may have done the market research and maybe, uh, the company has put so much money into, you know, trying to understand their avatar, but if you're not working the front line, there is somebody who knows what your customer wants more than you. And that's your staff on the front line. That's the people that come in and do the actual work. I'm not saying you don't work, but come on, we know that the frontline employees take the brunt of things. They have a pulse, they have an understanding of what your customer wants. And that's fantastic because you know what you can do. You can schedule one on ones and not reschedule, um, them, but you can schedule one on ones with your staff members and get an understanding of what they deal with day in and day out, what common scenes, what common scenarios pop up and how can we provide better value for our customers. Again, the company may have spent bajillions of dollars on avatar research, but your frontline staff, that is your most valuable asset. So don't lie to yourself thinking that you know everything about what the customer wants. If you're not working the front line, there's a great possibility that you don't know what the customer wants. Now, before we get into lie number five, I want you to know that this podcast episode is sponsored by yours truly. I've just created a 30 page, what I'm calling the management, the ultimate management Launchpad. It's 30 templates that as a manager, you may need, whether it be writing an employee up, promoting an employee, working on the business, working on your scheduling. These are templates. But as an added bonus, 15 email templates to help you have email conversations with your staff. Some of them might be awkward, but we've got a template for that. So in the show, notes do go down and click on the link for the ultimate managers launchpad, because it's there, it's getting great reviews, people are loving it, and I'm sure you will find value there. As for lie number five, and I've said this one myself, the lie is this. It's just business. It's not personal. That's a lie. Because as much as we want to believe things are just business, this is the way it is. People are involved, people have take things personally. When you assign a task, you may say, uh, well, I'm just handing it to this person because, well, it's just business. They don't like to do it, but that's what they have to do. But let's pull back and ask yourself, how are you making these assignments? How are you handing out the workload? Are you buddy, buddy with somebody else? Are. Does somebody get under your skin and you just want to hand them more work to keep them away from you, to keep them busy? I'm not saying this is wrong. I'm not saying that. I've never done this in my career. What I'm saying is don't lie to yourself. Know that things are personal at work. It's not just business. And you'll know this, especially if, if you've had the, um, the unfortunate experience of a co worker losing a loved one, you'll feel how personal that is. You'll feel it if you have a co worker or a staff member who gets seriously injured on the job. At least I hope you will. Because if you don't feel the personal effects of that, then you're definitely in the wrong business. You must be insensitive, in my opinion. But we work with these people for so long. We spend so much time with these people. Of course we're going to take things personally, both good and bad. So don't tie in and don't try to have that front of. It's just business. People can see through it. At some point, things will be done and taken personally. So I hope that these five lies are something that I hope you. If you've connected with them, if any of them sound true, I hope it gives you a moment or you take a moment to think about them. How often are you telling yourself these things? Is there a. A lie that I didn't cover here that you think you might be telling yourself? And if it's not too much trouble, if you're listening to this on Apple podcast, how about a. How about a little review? 5 stars would be great, but if you didn't find total value, four would be okay. Anyway, until next week. We'll talk soon.