To lead a company, well that's a hard task. But, surprisingly, there are some errors you can avoid just by looking at others and using common sense.
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Let's take a look what are the easiest ways to destroy trust, productivity and, in the end, the whole company with bad leadership.
One of the best, and successfully proved ways, is to add a new level of hierarchy when you encounter a problem. "We don't sell enough? OK, I'll name Sales Leader and he will be between all sales persons and Sales Manager!" Introducing unnecessary middle management is the best way to remove employees from their duties and make them fill endless sheets of papers. That, of course, leaves more work on your working people and makes communication from the bottom to top much longer.
Another nice way to destroy your people's spirit is to introduce too frequent checking and performance monitoring. There are companies that have extensive checking on each and every employee every week, and we are talking about tens of thousands of workers. No wonder those companies are called slow, unable to react, dinosaurs. Too much checking sends a clear message: "I don't believe you".
Call your employees to give their ideas and then do nothing. There are companies that collect employees' ideas because somebody on the top heard that should be done on a regular basis but top management never do anything about it. So, asking around just for the sake of asking is an excellent way to tell your people "We are truly bureaucratic organization".
Go through your people's ideas and then decide something else. And do that every time. Yes, there are bosses out there thinking that their decision must be different because if they agree with their employees they will show weakness. But that's not true. Respecting workers' ideas will boost your productivity and personal reputation, and doing different every time just to be different, well, very soon you won't have anybody to work for you.
Give reward to same people all the time and tell everyone how good example they are. OK, we can admit that are business stars in every company, people that work harder and longer and with better results, but we can't imagine a situation in which just a few are worth and others are worth nothing. Common sense in enough to come to that conclusion.
So, take a few employees to your friends, give them awards every now and them, and then stay surprised when you see that productivity of other workers went down to zero.
Don't give awards at all. "People have things to do and they are paid for that, right? So, why awards?!" The problem is that you are dealing with people, not robots. They need simple "thank you," maybe a day off, maybe a present for their birthday, they need something in return and that something must not be money every time. However, if you want to get rid of your people really quickly, stick with "you are paid anyway" mantra.
And if nothing of the above works, forbid layoffs in your company. You are all one big happy family, it's impossible to get fired, c'mon people do what you want!
Contrary to your possible beliefs, when it's close to impossible to get fired your employee won't reward you with outstanding work. Why? Because we are humans. Sooner or later they will realize that they really can do whatever they want with no consequences at all. After that, you have one happy, dysfunctional company sinking very fast. ■