You’ve probably heard the popular workplace phrase, It’s not personal, it’s just business. Although that may be true in some cases, it’s crucial to understand that when your job is managing and leading people, it becomes both personal and professional . Sometimes leaders and employees don’t recognize the line where their professional and personal relationships overlap, hurting company culture. These seven ways you’re hurting your company culture show you how to maintain that important line of separation so everyone at your workplace feels valued and respected.
What culture are you building? It’s a question that many people have trouble answering, but it’s a crucial one. The worst thing you can do is assume your company has a culture and spend zero time working on it. If you don’t know what your company culture is, work on figuring it out before you worry about fixing anything else. Bad culture can also impact an organization growth. Check out this INC article: How Culture is Hurting Growth
People aren’t perfect. They aren’t going to be on time all of the time or complete every task with precision, but if you expect that from them, you’re likely to fail. Allow for people to screw up and move past it—they just might surprise you by being there more often than not when they say they will and doing their jobs well. These people are worth keeping around, so don’t look down on them as not professional enough.
One of my favorite excuses is, Well it’s different for me because I’m a boss. When people say that, I ask them to define what makes their situation different. Invariably, they stumble over their words until they realize that in fact it isn’t so different after all—it’s just easier for them to ignore rules and professional boundaries than it is for most people.
We’ve all been in a situation where we knew something was wrong but didn’t have to guts to tell someone or we pretended that nothing was going on. It may seem like you’re helping a situation by not saying anything, but in reality, you’re hurting your company culture and most likely tarnishing your image. A good leader communicates how they expect others to behave—and are willing to deal with whatever comes along with it.
When you judge other employees on their differences, your co-workers don’t take your advice seriously. They’ll dismiss your suggestions and snicker behind your back. If you want to improve company culture, you need to treat everyone with respect and try to understand where they’re coming from. Once they feel like they can trust you, they might open up to you and become more willing to work together as a team.
While blaming others for your problems or situations is easy and might give you a false sense of control, it doesn’t help anything. It prevents you from seeing things in a new light and accepting personal responsibility. Instead of looking at what went wrong and trying to fix it, you are wasting energy by getting angry and upset because someone else didn’t do their job right. Take ownership and move forward!
It’s important to address team issues with other employees, and you can do so professionally. However, when you try to fix everyone else’s problems for them—even if you mean well—you end up distracting them from their own issues, preventing them from developing problem-solving skills that are crucial in every position.
Worried about things that feel out of control? Check out this article on Taking Back Control.