In the last YES! Your Human Resources Solution blog, we taught you How to Talk About Your Bad Boss in a Job Interview. Half of us have quit a job just to get away from a boss we couldn’t handle anymore. If you’re in a supervisory role, right about now you might be thinking, Is that me?

We’ll help you find out! But remember, even great bosses have bad days. This is more about bosses whose frustrating, demoralizing, and annoying behaviors cause them to have more bad days than good. It’s good if you’re asking if your behavior is making your employees quit, because many of these bosses don’t realize how their behavior affects their employees.

You might be pushing employees away if you:

• Hold too many meetings. Meetings are the enemy of productivity. Too many employees waste time in meetings that meander, don’t draw a real conclusion, or don’t require their input. So before you call a meeting, ask yourself 1) if a conference call or email exchange would suffice; and 2) if you’ve properly identified the necessary attendees. Your employees will thank you for valuing their time.
• Hold meetings during lunchtime. Talk about too many meetings—they’re creeping into personal time! Free food does not make up for asking employees to work through their lunch breaks. And this can get your company fined: According to California law, if employees are bound to their work duties and are not free to leave the premises during their meal period, then they must be paid for their time, even if you provide the food.
• Call/Text/Email employees who are sick or on vacation. No invisible chain permanently links employees to their workstations. That means their personal leave time, whether sick or vacation, is not a good time to message them with a million work-related questions. Much like requiring employees to work through lunch, not respecting employees’ personal time is a quick way to push them out the door toward other opportunities.
• Continue to control a project you have delegated. Employees feel nervous and mistrusted when they work for a control freak. So when you delegate a project, mean it! Hand it over—yes, the whole thing. You’re trusting your employee to lead the project, so you’re not going to do it yourself, and you’re not going to constantly check in to see how it’s going. For starters, you don’t want to impugn this employee’s abilities. You also don’t want to create confusion about who is driving the project or its components. You chose this person to lead for a reason! So let’s sing together: “Let it go, let it go…”

Even the best bosses are bound to sneak in some annoying traits from time to time, and that’s OK. Nobody is perfect! Working to fix annoying, frustrating, or demoralizing behaviors can only improve your relationships with your employees, which will set you on the road to becoming a better boss.