Do you have a sinking feeling that your employees hate you?
We’re all familiar with the saying, “You don’t leave a bad job; you leave a bad boss.”
Most managers don’t intentionally drive their employees away. However, approximately 50% of adults surveyed by Gallup have left a job to escape their manager. This startling statistic means that there’s a significant chance your employees might consider leaving their role—and your company—because of your management style.
What drives this dissatisfaction? Many employees cite a lack of guidance, unclear expectations, and insufficient support in setting goals or managing priorities.
If any of your employees exhibit the following signs, they might be harboring frustration or resentment towards your management approach. Let’s find out, once and for all, if your employees hate you.
1. Employees Hate Making Eye Contact With You
If your employees are more likely to focus on a photo behind you rather than make direct eye contact, it could be a sign that they are uncomfortable or disinterested in engaging with you. Eye contact is a fundamental aspect of communication, and its absence may indicate a lack of trust or a desire to avoid a deeper connection.
Lack of eye contact can also be connected to their trust or familiarity with you.
However, it’s also possible that lack of eye contact could have nothing to do with you. Neurodivergent people may experience discomfort with eye contact due to their heightened sensitivity to visual stimuli. This can lead them to avoid or limit eye contact to regulate their sensory input and reduce anxiety.
What to Do:
If you sense your employees dislike you because they won’t make eye contact, try building trust and connection. Think of your employees and team members as a crucial part of your career village, and work to create a harmonious community. Ask questions, communicate your values, and genuinely make efforts to make a personal connection with your employees.
2. Employees Take Extreme Efforts to Avoid You
When employees would rather walk up fourteen flights of stairs than share an elevator with you, it clearly indicates discomfort. This behavior suggests that they find interactions with you so unpleasant that they’ll go to great lengths to avoid them, even if it means inconvenience.
What to Do:
Similar to an employee avoiding eye contact, an employee avoiding any contact with you might be experiencing discomfort around you. In these cases, it’s important to conduct an honest self-evaluation. Reflect on your behavior, especially concerning employees you suspect might be avoiding you.
- Is your management style harsh or abrupt?
- Are you overly critical or dismissive?
- Do you provide positive feedback or do you tend to skew negative?
If you can make adjustments, be gentler, or find ways to provide an open environment, do so.
3. Frequent and Unexplained Absences
If you’ve noticed an uptick in sudden family health emergencies or other reasons for absence, your employee may be fabricating excuses to avoid work or interactions with you.
This can be a subtle cry for help, signaling that the work environment has become unbearable for them.
What to Do:
If your employees’ frequent, unexplained absences affect their work, try facilitating a conversation. If they are breaking protocol or calling in sick without notice, it might be grounds for disciplinary action. Keep a detailed record of absences, lateness, and other priorities that take them away from their work.
Before resorting to discipline, however, make time to connect with your employees. Ensure that there aren’t health or family reasons keeping them away from work. Have these conversations privately and discreetly.
4. Lack of Positivity or Enthusiasm
When was the last time you saw this employee smile or show enthusiasm? A consistent lack of positivity might indicate disengagement or even resentment.
This lack of visible joy can indicate that they no longer find satisfaction or fulfillment in their work, largely due to the work environment.
What to Do:
I hate to break it to you, but as the boss, you are responsible for your team’s morale. Low morale and job dissatisfaction may not be your fault. It could be an organization-wide issue that has been a scourge for years.
Do the work you need to do to make your team members feel respected, heard, and celebrated.
How to Show Your Employees Appreciation
- Write thank you notes and send messages of gratitude
- Give verbal praise
- Celebrate achievements, both big and small
- Have an open-door policy
- Schedule regular 1:1s (and don’t cancel them!)
- Respect boundaries
- Offer training and learning initiatives
- Facilitate small office outings (on the clock, if possible)
- Check-in on personal and professional well-being
- Make it a point to know things about your employees (e.g. their dog’s name, their birthday, their favorite sports team, and their ambitions)
In many circumstances, it doesn’t take a huge effort to improve morale. It’s more about showing up as a consistent and human boss.
5. Suppressed Communication and Laughter
If your presence seems to stifle any ongoing conversation or laughter, it’s a warning sign.
Healthy workplaces are filled with open communication and camaraderie. If entering a room causes these to cease, your employees might feel intimidated or overly cautious around you.
What to Do:
This is a tough one. It’s tough to address stifled laughter or a conversation screeching to a halt upon your arrival without seeming a little paranoid.
6. Exclusion from Social Events
Discovering that you were not informed about a team happy hour until overhearing it in passing suggests that your team deliberately excludes you. Social exclusion is often a sign that employees do not feel comfortable or connected with their manager on a personal level.
What to Do:
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but your employees probably don’t want you at their happy hour—and can you really blame them?
Think back to your first boss. Did you want them showing up to your happy hour? Nope.
Instead of insisting on an invite, make a bossy power move. Show solidarity by offering to provide a couple of pizzas for their next happy hour. They can’t spend the entire time speaking badly about you if you’re filling their bellies full of pizza, right?
7. Minimal Responses in Conversations
When an employee limits their responses to one-word answers or minimal engagement, it indicates a lack of willingness to communicate. This behavior often reflects a deeper issue, such as feeling undervalued or unheard in the workplace.
What to Do:
This behavior might have nothing to do with you. Some employees are quieter and more contemplative. As such, they might be less likely to speak up or share their opinions until they have had time to ruminate.
Ask direct questions and make it clear that you value their input. If you’re still hitting a communication wall, discuss your employee’s communication preferences. If you can facilitate discussion over email or another communication platform, it might be worth a try.
8. Overreliance on Email Communication
If all your communication with an employee is via email, even when face-to-face or verbal interaction is possible, they may avoid direct contact. This can be a sign that they are uncomfortable with the idea of open dialogue or fear confrontation.
What to Do:
Just like the above tip, facilitate a conversation that addresses communication techniques.
In fact, since communication is paramount to a successful team, a communication preference questionnaire is a great way to learn the best ways for the entire team to get their messages across.
9. Frequent Disagreements Over Minor Details
An employee who challenges you over even the most basic details might be doing so out of frustration or a lack of respect. This behavior can stem from a deeper dissatisfaction with how they perceive your leadership or decisions.
What to Do:
Not to sound like a total nerd, but respect is important in the workplace. If your employee frequently and publicly disagrees with you, find ways to communicate your boundaries.
10. Lack of Participation in Meetings
If you often ask for input during meetings and are met with silence, it could mean that your team doesn’t feel safe or valued enough to contribute. A disengaged team won’t offer new ideas or feedback, which is detrimental to your leadership and the company’s success.
What to Do:
All these behaviors are rooted in two primary issues: fear and distrust. If your employees fear you or don’t trust you, they will not be open or honest, and this hinders the flow of ideas and collaboration necessary for a thriving team.
If your employees are acting in these ways, it’s time to assess whether you’re seen as an effective leader or if you’ve unintentionally become a “boss-hole.”
Understanding Why You Might be Disliked at Work
It’s important to recognize that if your employees dislike you, it may not entirely be your fault. Many managers are promoted due to their success in non-managerial roles, without being given the necessary training to lead others effectively.
Unfortunately, management requires a different set of skills than individual contributor roles, and many organizations fail to provide adequate training.
For example, companies with fewer than 100 employees, on average, provide only 12 minutes of manager training every six months. This decreases to just six minutes for organizations with 100-500 employees, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
However, there are a few common reasons that employees dislike their bosses. Do any of these sound familiar?
- Lack of communication or insufficient communication
- Micromanagement
- Failure to recognize or reward employees
- Unfair treatment of preference towards other employees
- Poor leadership skills
- Lack of support
- Poor interpersonal skills
- Poor or inconsistent decision-making
- Inaccessibility
How to Improve Your Perception at Work
If your company doesn’t offer the training you need to succeed as a manager, it’s crucial to seek leadership education yourself. Becoming a strong leader involves introspection and a commitment to learning.
Reflect on the type of leader you aspire to be and the impact you want to have on your team. Remember, effective leaders inspire others through authenticity and by leading by example. In having many of the conversations mentioned above, you’ll likely learn more about your employees, their professional goals, and maybe even their desire to seek a promotion.
By changing your approach, you can significantly improve employee engagement and, by extension, your company’s performance. Engaged teams experience 24% to 59% less turnover, 10% higher customer ratings, 21% greater profitability, 17% higher productivity, 28% less shrinkage, 70% fewer safety incidents, and 41% less absenteeism. Plus, as a bonus, your employees might start inviting you to join them for after-work drinks—no more being the boss that everyone avoids.
