If your staff is underperforming and not meeting your expectations, maybe you should take a look at your behavior and see if it's in sync with the messages you're giving out. When there is a disconnect between what the boss says and what the boss does, your staff will always give more weight to the boss's behavior.

Conflicting communications leave your staff confused, frustrated and ultimately apathetic. Inconsistency with policies and expectations tells your staff you don't know what you're doing, you don't care what they're doing, or you're capricious and volatile as a supervisor. None of those is conducive to building and maintaining a cohesive, efficient team.

Here are some of the most common conflicting messages and behaviors that are guaranteed to kill your staff:

  1. Message: "Call the manager on duty if you need approval for something."

    Behavior: "Why did you call me when you can do this on your own?"

    Outcome: You will not get called for approval if you're going to chastise an employee for doing what you'd told him to do.

  2. Message: "Don't call me for every little thing; you're an adult and know what to do. Use your best judgment."

    Behavior: "What in the world were you thinking? You know we don't do that. You should have called me if there was a question."

    Outcome: You definitely will not get called to clarify a question. Your staffer will make a best guess, and if it's wrong, probably try to hide the mistake.

  3. Message: "Ask if you don't know how to do something; don't guess and maybe make a mistake."

    Behavior: "Why don't you know how to do this? How long have you been working here?"

    Outcome: Your staffer might simply guess on how to do something; or she will ask a co-worker. Then, you're at risk for co-workers perpetuating bad information.

  4. Message: "This policy is a priority for us and very important to our business growth."

    Behavior: "This policy is not a priority if there is a competing priority; use your best judgment on which priority is more of a priority (see #2)."

    Outcome: Your employee decides there are no priorities at all and handles all tasks as they're presented without regard to importance or urgency.

  5. Message: "These are your assigned tasks, and everyone is expected to do them."

    Behavior: "But I won’t check on whether they're done, and I don't want any tattletales on who is not doing their tasks."

    Outcome: The staff faithfully doing their tasks eventually gets resentful that their co-workers are slouching their duties but getting equal pay. Resentment toward co-workers and boss builds until the employee decides, "Heck with it; I'm not doing my tasks either; there's no reward in doing my job." The boss then wonders why his staff is not doing their tasks.

If you recognize yourself in any of these scenarios, stop before you kill off your staff's motivation or kill your business. Say what you mean and mean what you say.

Recognize that your behavior speaks louder than your words, so take an honest inventory of your own behaviors. Resolve to act genuinely on your beliefs so this year is one of business growth and staff cohesion.