An awful manager can ruin the workplace experience. You can identify these managers by their ability to push blame onto their near minimum wage workers. Their negative environment and inability to produce truly meaningful feedback, create a loop in which one side blames the other again and again.
In these circumstances, the power dynamic is clearly in favor of the manager. So they naturally have the ability to determine their impact and the ambience on the workplace. Their choice: to negatively influence the workers or positively influence the workers.
In the case of the negative influence, unity can be shed on the workers, but the unity is in opposition to the manager. The negative manager will become the butt of the joke. They will lose the ability to control their workers. They may even believe they are adequately controlling the situation, when in fact, the workers are becoming more sly when it comes to rule breaking.
The case of the positive influence brings unity in another way. Instead of an effort to work against the manager, the workers will work with one another as well as the manager. This influence makes work flow easily. The true difference a manager can make in order to positively or negatively impact the workplace is to not micromanage the employee.
Micromanaging can appear positive or negative, but in reality it is always negative. Having a person on the back of an employee weighs down the work the employee can do. Even if the comments the manager makes are positive in nature, having work always examined to the core and allowing no leeway will bring productivity to a screeching halt.
How can the manager allow the employee space enough and provide encouraging feedback enough to truly have a positive feedback? What can happen is personalization. The manager can occasionally let work slip the mind and talk about their own lives and hobbies. The manager can also do check-ins with the employee, asking the employee directly if they need help rather than insisting and blaming the employee for mistakes.
This same information is largely informative for employees at the same level as one another as well. Co-workers can benefit by offering a helping hand rather than insisting someone needs help. Personalization is also a huge factor in building relationships. Co-workers and managers can simply assess the situation through asking: how would I want to be treated?
