[originaltext] A poorly trained manager can make an employee’s life miserable

A poorly trained manager can make an employee’s life miserable. In 99 out of 100 cases, the reason employees feel demoralized and no longer like their jobs is because they have a new boss who doesn’t appreciate them, doesn’t listen to them, or generally erodes their self-esteem.Three basic skills that every manager should use in order to be effective on the job are: being specific, enhancing others’ self-esteem and listening effectively. Being specific means giving work instructions that are precise, and being clear about what is to be done and the results to be achieved. Being specific means describing the behaviors of people rather than labeling people. It includes giving both positive feedback that tells them what to repeat and corrective feedback that is firm, yet non-critical. Then it comes to building the employees up. Self-esteem is a private, individual matter. It is not fixed, but goes up and down from day to day, or even from hour to hour. Thus, enhancing self-esteem is no easy task. Managers can’t "make" people feel good about themselves. Rather, self-esteem is like a door that’s locked from the inside. A final skill that today’s managers need more than ever is listening. Listening may seem like a commonplace skill, but it is not practiced nearly as much as it needs to be in business today. People tend to think about what they are going to say in rebuttal when another person is talking, instead of focusing on what that person is saying and what he or she means.