7 Things Your Employees Never Want to Hear

Sure, actions speak louder than words, but where your employees are concerned, words can still be motivation and morale killers—especially when you use the wrong words.

Here are seven things you should never say to your employees:

1. "Good idea—now if we also…." Successful—and unsuccessful—people often try too hard to add value. While you may be able to improve on an employee's idea, and while it may be easy for you to map out an implementation plan based on that idea, when you do you run the risk of killing their motivation.

Try this instead. Say, "Wow, that's a really good idea," and then ask questions. Ask how they thought of the idea. Ask about the reasoning behind the idea. Ask how they think the idea should be implemented. Often the employee will already have the answers, and if not, you can gently guide them in the right direction.

From an employee’s point of view the best ideas are almost never your ideas. The best ideas are their ideas, and deservedly so. When an employee comes to you with an idea, make sure it stays their idea.

2. "Look. I’m in charge here." Dealing with different opinions or even open dissent is challenging for any small business owner. It’s easy to feel defensive and insecure. When that happens you might be tempted to fall back on the golden rule: He who has the gold, makes the rules.

Never fall back on, “I’m in charge,” to end a discussion with employees. Every employee knows you're in charge; saying so destroys any feelings of collaboration, teamwork, and “we’re all in this together.” When you can't back up a decision with data or logic that decision probably isn't the right decision.

Don't be afraid to back down. Don’t be afraid to say your initial opinions or decisions are wrong. Employees respect you even more when you admit you make a mistake.

3. "I have a great opportunity for you." Great opportunities are almost never great, since the phrase is typically followed by the “opportunity” take on additional work or handle a project no one wants. Say, "Susan, next week you’ll start working on a new project with our best customer," and Susan knows it’s a great opportunity for her. Say, "Susan, this will be a great opportunity for you: Next week you’ll start sorting out all the problems in our warehouse," and Susan knows she just got stuck.

Truly great opportunities require no setup. Don’t sell or you’ll leave your employees feeling sold.

4. "Man, I’m looking forward to my trip to Europe." Some business owners assume their employees will be inspired by their (conspicuous) success. Most employees are not.

The more you talk about how successful you are, whether overtly or implicitly, the more your employees will resent the fact your success is based on their hard work.

Is that fair? No. Does it happen? Absolutely. Never brag about your success to your employees. Be humble.

5. "I’ve had enough. I’m out of here." Perspective is everything. From your perspective, owning a business can be stressful, draining, and overwhelming. From the employee's perspective you have it made.

Employees don’t want to feel your pain. Never expect employees to empathize with you. If you must talk about a hard day’s work, talk about how the day was challenging and everyone pulled together to make stuff happen. Or share how much you appreciate your employees’ help. Always turn a difficult day into a way to recognize how hard your employees worked, not how hard you worked.

6. "No." Saying no is okay as long as the word “no” is never followed by a period. Explanations are always required when you refuse a request or turn down an idea—even if the reasoning behind your decision seems obvious to you.

As a business owner you probably don’t have a job description, but if you did, “Explain, explain, explain,” would appear near the top of your list of duties.

7. "We." We is a powerful word—except when it’s not. Employees can tell when you pay lip service to “we.”

In public, say “I” when your company makes a mistake. Say “we” when your company does something well.

Inside your company, say “you” when employees do something well. Say “we” when you do something well—because your success is always built by and based on the efforts of your employees.

The 5 Qualities of Remarkable Bosses

Remarkable bosses aren’t great on paper. Great bosses are remarkable based on their actions.

Results are everything—but not the results you might think.

Consistently do these five things and everything else follows. You and your business benefit greatly.

More importantly, so do your employees.

1. Develop every employee. Sure, you can put your primary focus on reaching targets, achieving results, and accomplishing concrete goals—but do that and you put your leadership cart before your achievement horse.

Without great employees, no amount of focus on goals and targets will ever pay off. Employees can only achieve what they are capable of achieving, so it’s your job to help all your employees be more capable so they—and your business—can achieve more.

It's your job to provide the training, mentoring, and opportunities your employees need and deserve. When you do, you transform the relatively boring process of reviewing results and tracking performance into something a lot more meaningful for your employees: Progress, improvement, and personal achievement.

So don’t worry about reaching performance goals. Spend the bulk of your time developing the skills of your employees and achieving goals will be a natural outcome.

Plus it’s a lot more fun.

2. Deal with problems immediately. Nothing kills team morale more quickly than problems that don't get addressed. Interpersonal squabbles, performance issues, feuds between departments... all negatively impact employee motivation and enthusiasm.

And they're distracting, because small problems never go away. Small problems always fester and grow into bigger problems. Plus, when you ignore a problem your employees immediately lose respect for you, and without respect, you can't lead.

Never hope a problem will magically go away, or that someone else will deal with it. Deal with every issue head-on, no matter how small.

3. Rescue your worst employee. Almost every business has at least one employee who has fallen out of grace: Publicly failed to complete a task, lost his cool in a meeting, or just can’t seem to keep up. Over time that employee comes to be seen by his peers—and by you—as a weak link.

While that employee may desperately want to “rehabilitate” himself, it's almost impossible. The weight of team disapproval is too heavy for one person to move.

But it’s not too heavy for you.

Before you remove your weak link from the chain, put your full effort into trying to rescue that person instead. Say, "John, I know you've been struggling but I also know you're trying. Let's find ways together that can get you where you need to be." Express confidence. Be reassuring. Most of all, tell him you'll be there every step of the way.

Don't relax your standards. Just step up the mentoring and coaching you provide.

If that seems like too much work for too little potential outcome, think of it this way. Your remarkable employees don’t need a lot of your time; they’re remarkable because they already have these qualities. If you’re lucky, you can get a few percentage points of extra performance from them. But a struggling employee has tons of upside; rescue him and you make a tremendous difference.

Granted, sometimes it won't work out. When it doesn't, don't worry about it. The effort is its own reward.

And occasionally an employee will succeed—and you will have made a tremendous difference in a person's professional and personal life.

Can’t beat that.

4. Serve others, not yourself. You can get away with being selfish or self-serving once or twice... but that's it.

Never say or do anything that in any way puts you in the spotlight, however briefly. Never congratulate employees and digress for a few moments to discuss what you did.

If it should go without saying, don't say it. Your glory should always be reflected, never direct.

When employees excel, you and your business excel. When your team succeeds, you and your business succeed. When you rescue a struggling employee and they become remarkable, remember they should be congratulated, not you.

You were just doing your job the way a remarkable boss should.

When you consistently act as if you are less important than your employees—and when you never ask employees to do something you don’t do—everyone knows how important you really are.

5. Always remember where you came from. See an autograph seeker blown off by a famous athlete and you might think, “If I was in a similar position I would never do that.”

Oops. Actually, you do. To some of your employees, especially new employees, you are at least slightly famous. You’re in charge. You’re the boss.

That's why an employee who wants to talk about something that seems inconsequential may just want to spend a few moments with you.

When that happens, you have a choice. You can blow the employee off... or you can see the moment for its true importance: A chance to inspire, reassure, motivate, and even give someone hope for greater things in their life. The higher you rise the greater the impact you can make—and the greater your responsibility to make that impact.

In the eyes of his or her employees, a remarkable boss is a star.

Remember where you came from, and be gracious with your stardom.

8 Things Your Employees Need Most

Getting a raise is like buying a bigger house; soon, more becomes the new normal.

Higher wages won’t cause employees to automatically perform at a higher level. Commitment, work ethic, and motivation are not based on pay.

To truly care about your business, your employees need these eight things—and they need them from you:

1. Freedom. Best practices can create excellence, but every task doesn't deserve a best practice or a micro-managed approach. (Yes, even you, fast food industry.)

Autonomy and latitude breed engagement and satisfaction. Latitude also breeds innovation. Even manufacturing and heavily process-oriented positions have room for different approaches.

Whenever possible, give your employees the freedom to work they way they work best.

2. Targets. Goals are fun. Everyone—yes, even you—is at least a little competitive, if only with themselves. Targets create a sense of purpose and add a little meaning to even the most repetitive tasks.

Without a goal to shoot for, work is just work. And work sucks.

3. Mission. We all like to feel a part of something bigger. Striving to be worthy of words like "best" or "largest" or "fastest" or "highest quality" provides a sense of purpose.

Let employees know what you want to achieve, for your business, for customers, and even your community. And if you can, let them create a few missions of their own.

Caring starts with knowing what to care about—and why.

4. Expectations. While every job should include some degree of latitude, every job needs basic expectations regarding the way specific situations should be handled. Criticize an employee for expediting shipping today, even though last week that was the standard procedure if on-time delivery was in jeopardy, and you lose that employee.

Few things are more stressful than not knowing what your boss expects from one minute to the next.

When standards change make sure you communicate those changes first. When you can't, explain why this particular situation is different, and why you made the decision you made.

5. Input. Everyone wants to offer suggestions and ideas. Deny employees the opportunity to make suggestions, or shoot their ideas down without consideration, and you create robots.

Robots don't care.

Make it easy for employees to offer suggestions. When an idea doesn't have merit, take the time to explain why. You can't implement every idea, but you can always make employees feel valued for their ideas.

6. Connection. Employees don’t want to work for a paycheck; they want to work with and for people.

A kind word, a short discussion about family, a brief check-in to see if they need anything... those individual moments are much more important than meetings or formal evaluations.

7. Consistency. Most people can deal with a boss who is demanding and quick to criticize... as long as he or she treats every employee the same. (Think of it as the Tom Coughlin effect.)

While you should treat each employee differently, you must treat each employee fairly. (There's a big difference.)

The key to maintaining consistency is to communicate. The more employees understand why a decision was made the less likely they are to assume favoritism or unfair treatment.

8. Future. Every job should have the potential to lead to something more, either within or outside your company.

For example, I worked at a manufacturing plant while I was in college. I had no real future with the company. Everyone understood I would only be there until I graduated.

One day my boss said, "Let me show you how we set up our production board."

I raised an eyebrow; why show me? He said, "Even though it won’t be here, some day, somewhere, you'll be in charge of production. You might as well start learning now."

Take the time to develop employees for jobs they someday hope to fill—even if those positions are outside your company. (How will you know what they hope to do? Try asking.)

Employees will care about your business when you care about them first.