Sometimes they’ve been telling you for months. You just haven’t been listening.

I recently read an excellent article by Marcel Schwantes in Inc., “Why Good Employees Quit Comes Down to 5 Leadership Mistakes.” He discusses five common leadership failures: lack of recognition, micromanagement, ignoring career growth, allowing burnout, and failing to have meaningful conversations with employees.

His article resonated with me because I see these issues regularly while coaching business owners and managers.

I also hear about them from employees. When I ask whether they’ve raised a particular concern with their manager or owner, I sometimes hear, “No, they’re so busy. There hasn’t been an opportunity.”

Think about that. Employees recognize their managers are too busy to hear about the very problems that may eventually drive them to leave.

Most of the owners I work with genuinely care about their employees. They want to create good workplaces. They value loyalty and are often generous in ways their employees may not even realize.

But good intentions don’t necessarily translate into good leadership.

Sometimes the very behaviors owners believe protect their businesses drive their best people out the door. Or, worse, they turn once-engaged employees into people who keep showing up and doing their jobs but have stopped believing anything will change.

The Employee Who Was Holding Everything Together

Consider a situation I’ve seen in different forms more than once.

A longtime employee had become indispensable to a growing company. This person knew the customers, understood the systems, solved problems, trained new employees, and often stepped in when things went wrong.

The owner considered this employee one of the company’s greatest assets.

But over time, the workload became unsustainable. As other employees struggled or positions went unfilled, more responsibilities landed on the shoulders of the person who could always be counted on to get things done.

The employee continued to perform. The work got done. Customers were taken care of.

From the owner’s perspective, everything appeared to be working.

Some of the owners would even tell me, “Once things slow down,” they would focus on workloads and process improvements.

But things never slowed down.

And then the employee resigned.

The owner was stunned.

The owner hadn’t realized that the employee’s reliability was masking a serious operational problem.

The business wasn’t functioning well because it had a great system. It was functioning because one great employee was compensating for a broken one.

I’ve written about this before in my article, Your Sales Team Isn’t Burned Out. Your System Is.

When the same people constantly put out fires, cover for underperformers, and compensate for poor processes, burnout isn’t an individual weakness. It’s a management problem.

And eventually, even your most dedicated employees get tired of carrying the load and decide they’ve had enough.

When Fairness Becomes an Excuse for Inflexibility

Another situation I encounter involves owners and managers who struggle to accommodate employees dealing with personal circumstances.

An otherwise excellent employee requests some temporary flexibility in scheduling or responsibilities.

The owner’s immediate reaction?

“If I let one person do that, everyone will expect the same treatment.”

I understand the concern. Business owners need consistency. They need policies. They can’t operate with a different set of rules for every employee.

But fairness doesn’t always mean treating everyone identically.

It means making thoughtful, reasonable decisions based on circumstances, business needs, and the individual’s contributions.

There is a significant difference between an employee asking for special treatment and a valued employee asking for some flexibility during a difficult period.

And sometimes, the cost of saying no is much greater than the inconvenience of saying yes.

Owners often overlook the message their decision sends to everyone else.

People talk. They notice how their coworkers are treated, particularly when someone is going through a difficult time.

And they begin to wonder, “What happens to me if I need some flexibility someday?”

Before rejecting a request, I encourage owners to ask themselves:

·       Is there a legitimate business reason we can’t accommodate this?

·       Could we offer a temporary arrangement with clear expectations?

·       What would it cost us to replace this employee if they left?

·       What message will I send to other employees about how we’ll support them when they need help?

Too often, owners and managers focus more on the precedent they might set than on finding a creative solution that gives the employee what they need, keeps their institutional knowledge inside the company, and communicates the business’s value system to all employees.

The Problem Everyone Knows About, but Nobody Addresses

Here’s another leadership failure that can quietly destroy a team.

An employee becomes disengaged. Performance slips. Commitments aren’t met. Coworkers begin compensating for the person’s lack of contribution.

The owner knows there’s a problem.

The team knows there’s a problem.

But the owner avoids addressing it.

Sometimes it’s because the employee has been with the company for years. Sometimes the owner dislikes confrontation. Sometimes they’re simply too busy and just wish the problem would fix itself.

Meanwhile, employees who are still doing their jobs grow increasingly frustrated.

They work harder to compensate for someone who isn’t pulling their weight, and they watch management do nothing about it.

Eventually, the wrong employee leaves.

When leaders tolerate persistent underperformance, they’re not avoiding a difficult decision. They’re transferring the consequences of that decision to their best employees.

That’s not loyalty. And it’s certainly not good leadership.

The Conversations That Never Happen

Schwantes also references Gallup’s research on the importance of meaningful conversations between managers and employees.

This may be the most overlooked opportunity of all.

I work with owners and managers who are so consumed by daily operations that they rarely sit down with employees unless something has gone wrong.

Their conversations are transactional.

What’s the status of that order? Did you call the customer? When will that proposal be ready? Why isn’t this finished?

Those conversations are necessary, but they aren’t enough.

When was the last time you asked a valued employee:

·       “What’s making your job harder than it needs to be?”

·       “Are there responsibilities you’re carrying that we need to rethink?”

·       “What would you like to be doing a year from now?”

·       “What could I be doing differently to help you succeed?”

And perhaps the most revealing question:

“If you were running this company, what’s one thing you’d change?”

Of course, asking the questions is only half the equation.

Employees stop sharing concerns when experience teaches them that nothing will change.

And when managers are perpetually too busy to have these conversations, employees eventually stop trying to have them.

Retention Starts Long Before Someone Resigns

One of the most painful conversations I have with business owners happens after a valued employee has left.

Suddenly, the owner recognizes how much that person did, how many problems they solved, and how difficult they’ll be to replace.

Often, it’s the owner or manager who now has to cover for the missing employee.

Now they’re the ones working late, missing time with their families, and skipping conferences that could help them build a more successful business.

I’ve seen owners and managers trapped in that position for months, sometimes years, unable to find time to hire and train a replacement because they’re too busy doing the work the employee left behind.

The very situation they failed to address has now become their own.

And sometimes, there’s genuine regret.

I wish I had known.

I wish I’d done something sooner.

I wish I’d realized how unhappy they were.

But here’s the question I would challenge every business owner to consider:

Did you really have no way of knowing, or were you so focused on keeping the business running that you stopped paying attention to the people keeping it running?

The five leadership mistakes Schwantes identifies aren’t particularly complicated. Most don’t require significant financial investment to correct.

They require attention, judgment, a willingness to have uncomfortable conversations, and occasionally the humility to recognize that the problem may be how we’re leading.

Your best employees aren’t necessarily looking for a reason to leave.

But if you consistently give them reasons to question whether they want to stay, eventually some of them will.

Do This Now: Think about the three employees your business would have the hardest time replacing. When was the last time you had a conversation with each of them about their experience working for you, rather than their work?

Make time for those conversations before you’re forced to make time to replace them.