Leadership & People Management
Everything you need to know on Leadership and People Management topics at Holistic Engineering Laboratories Ltd.
Rules
Feel free to share details about your family, hobbies, vacations, and even your worries—at least when asked. Positive feedback for your colleagues is also perfectly acceptable. However, under no circumstances should you bring up issues with a colleague’s behavior or work style. Addressing difficult topics or giving constructive feedback might seriously disrupt the team’s harmonious atmosphere.
Only hire employees who are, ideally, copies of yourself - just a few degrees less competent. That way, they pose no threat to your position and you can safely assume they won’t challenge your opinions.
To avoid being blamed for having too many open positions, make sure that once someone is hired, they’re never let go due to lack of competence or performance - especially not during the probation period, because that would clearly make you the one who hired the wrong person. And if you did make a mistake? Just promote the employee and transfer them to another department - so any future performance issues can be pinned on someone else.
To minimize the hassle of people management, avoid regular 1:1s—or better yet, cancel them at short notice due to more “important” commitments. This sends a clear message: everything else comes before your employees. A great way to cultivate humility in your team. And if an employee’s performance isn’t up to par, leave it to someone else to break the news. That way, your own relationship with them stays perfectly untarnished.
Keep your employees’ goals as vague as possible. This gives you the flexibility to interpret them however you like and evaluate performance accordingly. It’s crucial to keep the actual intent behind the goals unclear—this ensures employees stay focused on hitting the KPI numbers without being distracted by the real purpose behind them. At the same time, you demonstrate financial prudence: since true goal achievement remains open to interpretation, you can easily avoid performance-based bonuses and salary increases.
If you notice misconduct from an individual employee, under no circumstances should you give direct feedback. After all, if one person is doing it, others probably are too. Instead, issue a new rule that applies to everyone—to prevent the behavior from spreading. When drafting the rule, make sure it contradicts existing policies. That way, you’ll always have something to hold against your employees when needed.
To justify a promotion to the next level, simply cite the employee’s long tenure and the fact that they’ve asked for it repeatedly. Other criteria are usually too subjective and only spark unnecessary debate. And whatever you do, don’t make the mistake of checking whether there’s actually a suitable open position that needs filling at the higher level. If you wait for that, you’ll never promote anyone. Pro tip: just create new positions as needed. It also shows off your proactive mindset and strategic thinking.
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