7 bad leadership patterns that drive good employees away, and how to fix them

Managers rarely wake up intending to drive away talented employees. Yet every week, employees quietly decide they’ve had enough—not because of one terrible meeting or one bad day, but because they’ve experienced the same behaviors and conduct over and over again. Gallup has repeatedly found that managers account for most of the variance in employee engagement. That’s because employees experience an organization primarily through the person they report to. A manager can make work meaningful—or unbearable. The good news is that poor leadership isn’t random. It follows recognizable patterns. When leaders learn to spot them in themselves, they have an opportunity to change before their best people begin updating their résumés. Having coached leaders for two decades, here are seven patterns that I’ve seen quietly push good employees toward the exit. 1. Control becomes more important than trust Micromanagement is about control, and it rarely works as a people strategy. Often, it’s rooted in fear—fear that no one else can do the job correctly or that mistakes will reflect poorly on the boss. Employees experience managerial control as a lack of confidence in their judgment. Flipping this …