Fairness is not absolute

An unfair leader is very visible. She/he divides the team into favorites and outsiders, is often inconsistent, tries to avoid communicating with employees, and does not accept feedback. This leadership style creates serious risks for the company: when a tense atmosphere reigns in the team, employees are not involved in the process, staff turnover begins. ⠀

Unfairness is a virus. In a team with a biased leader, people will be certainly like her/him. This means that the negative wave will quickly reach customers and this will lead to the collapse of the business. ⠀

A self-respecting professional will never work with this type of boss. For the company, such a boss is a pain. Staff productivity decreases, negative reviews about the employer appear on social networks - all this harms the company's image. This "cancer" needs to be removed, and the sooner the better. ⠀

The incorrect attitude of the manager towards employees leads to the fact that in the end they cease to understand what is good and what is bad, because they cannot please the manager and lose their orientation.
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If you bring all the signs of an unfair leader to four main ones, you get the following list: tyranny, excessive criticism, lack of respect for the personal boundaries of subordinates and a critical view of the distribution of workload between employees. ⠀

In addition, an unfair leader does not know how to work in a team. He equals all employees to one size, cannot adequately assess the degree of difficulty of the task for a particular employee. And after all the leader must learn to trust people and give them the opportunity to develop together with the company.

How to be fair? ⠀

A fair leader must see beyond others and demonstrate emotional maturity. She/he can be compared to the stoker of a steam locomotive, whose task is to throw up fuel on time, develop the talents of employees, and motivate subordinates.

One of the most important signs of fairness is objectivity and impartiality in the allocation of tasks and rewards for completing them. A fair leader speaks to her/his subordinates in their language. Why do employees think that their leaders are not fair?

Often, bosses do not know how to interact with people, do not understand who is who: process employees or result employees. If you do not set a clear task for the first ones, they will just “float”: when and how exactly the task will be completed is unknown. The latter ones will perform each task with quality and on time, even if there was no clear specification. People are different and it is worth recognizing this fact.

Fairness is whom the boss hires, how reasonable and clear tasks she/he sets and how often she/he praises his subordinates, says the pros of the work they have done, and not just the cons. Such a leader sets intermediate deadlines and removes the “crown” from her/his head. She/he knows the dreams and goals of her/his subordinates and understands that the employee chose to work in this company not only because of the salary.

Being a fair leader means striking a balance between the interests of the organization and the interests of the employee. It is necessary to fairly encourage and develop people.

How to make a fair decision?

An unfair boss makes many decisions based on her/his mood. Meanwhile, fairness in management is based not only on moral and ethical criteria on which we rely in life. Business decisions are based on the mission of the company, on the promise that the brand gives to its customers and employees. And most importantly, they take into account the achievement or non-achievement of specific performance indicators by a unit or specialist. It is pointless to evaluate the fairness of the manager's decisions outside these coordinates.

Ask yourself questions: do I know the situation as a whole or only my personal perspective, did I give a chance to correct the situation, did I listen to the employee's position, did it happen for the first time or not. It is difficult to assess which of your decisions are fair without putting yourself in the employee's shoes. Therefore, it is worthwhile to immerse yourself in the work of your department on a par with the team for the prevention of blinkering.

Fairness is not absolute. It cannot be less or more, and there is no standard fairness. Therefore, no one has yet invented the instruction for fairness. Still, we can learn to be more fair and analyze ourselves more often. Being fair if you are able to manage your emotions is not difficult at all. It is not easy to manage motions. And for this you need to mentally separate the results of the work of employees from their personal qualities. We all have prejudices and preferences, likes and dislikes, but they must be left at home.