The path of leadership is a journey not for the faint of heart. It requires the prerequisite of continuous personal development before you can claim the honorable title of “leader.”

Yet most bosses that don’t deserve the title never put in the work…and fail miserably. They are bosses that play for the name on the front of the jersey, not the back.

It’s the person in charge who sees employees as “cogs” rather than worthy colleagues to be treated like business partners in producing results. The utter lack of appreciation, recognition, and direction takes a huge toll, and as the saying goes, your best people end up leaving their managers, not their jobs.

7 Signs Bosses Are Failing

Over the years, I have seen quite a few prevalent “bad boss” behaviors that speak loudly to an employee that, “I don’t value you.” Seven of those behaviors are typical in command-and-control management structures that place profit ahead of people.

1. Failure to identify and use the strengths of employees.

Not recognizing their employees’ unique strengths and talents beyond a job description, and how that translates to high performance, is certainly an engagement killer. People love to use their unique gifts. The best leaders will leverage close relationships with employees by finding out what their strengths are, and bringing out the best in their employees.

2. Failure to share information.

A leader with a penchant for hoarding information does it to wield his power and control his environment and the people in it. And the stifling exercise of power and control over people is the most effective way to kill trust. The reverse is a leader who acts responsibly by sharing information and displaying transparency with their team.

3. Failure to listen to feedback.

Are you an employee reporting to a manager who is always right and has the final say on everything? Micro-managers are notorious for operating in one-way communication traffic. They fail by not listening to feedback to support the needs of others and improve themselves and their business. Good leaders, on the flip side, are active listeners, taking in the varied perspectives of team members, who understand that they are free and safe to provide input into decisions.

4. Failure to make themselves available.

In direct opposition to the invisible manager who hides behind closed doors, good leaders walk their four corners and make time to meet team members regularly (15 minutes will do the trick for effective one-on-ones) because they value them as employees and care about them as human beings.

5. Failure to acknowledge what’s going right.

You guessed it, in micromanaged environments, management focuses solely on what employees are doing wrong or on correcting problems, and rarely gives positive feedback for what is going right.

6. Failure to act expediently.

In bureaucratic fortresses, there are too many levels of approval and management to get things done expediently and efficiently, and a singular focus on micromanaging employees because of the simple fact that trust is absent.

7. Failure to foster a team environment.

One of the worst crimes managers commit against employees is setting them up to compete internally, against one another. This is enforced by performance metrics that put the emphasis on individual performance rather than team performance. In a competitive culture of dog-eat-dog and survival of the fittest, people are considered objects or expenses rather than assets. As you may have imaged, many will encounter high levels of stress, turnover, absenteeism, and burnout trying to outdo one another.