Are You An Enlightened Manager?

For example, your company may say that being late twice in 6 months results in a verbal warning. As an enlightened manager, you could change the parameters of being late. Such as, if a person is late by less than 30 minutes, then they simply work 30 minutes unpaid overtime instead of working towards a verbal warning. Furthermore, if a person calls in advance to say they are going to be more than 30 minutes late, then they are not deemed to be late if they agree to work the time back.

There are some very bad managers out there

The worst thing is that these managers often write books about how to be a manager, and they pass on advice that makes more and more people hate their jobs. There are managers that will have to keep making "power moves" all the time, and ones who rule with an iron fist. They think they are doing a great job, but the fact is that if any of their staff ever had the chance to screw them over, then they would at the drop of a hat.

Your staff do not have to love you

They only have to respect you. You will never get every staff member to like you. The best you are going to get is, "yeah, he/she is alright." But, they do need to respect both your position and your integrity. They need to respect your position because sometimes all a manager has is his/her title. Many managers are not able to sack staff or discipline staff in any manner that has a long-term (or even short-term) effect.

They need to respect your integrity because if you say something and do not follow through, then they will never trust your word again. This is going to under-motivate your staff and make managing them a lot harder. Having staff like you is a good thing, but you cannot be their friends in many cases. This may only happen if you have a very close-nit team where no member is ever excluded (within reason).