#1 Do not keep your commitments. There is nothing more discouraging for the employee than to see that the employer has forgotten about their promises. Keep up such a behavior until you lose all your authority and prove that you do not care about the employee and their time.

#2 Treat the employee as a person unable to take the simplest decisions on their own, and when you delegate, make sure that they feel your watchful gaze.
Justify yourself that you only care for a high quality and efficiency of the company so that they know that it is not them creating that quality.

#3 Remember that what you say is not necessarily the same thing that you do. Be unpredictable and change your mind every minute. Let the employees figure out what you mean, isn’t that the reason why you have employed qualified and experienced staff ? Don’t lose time for explaining or holding frequent meetings during which you will set goals and commitments.

#4 Whatever you do, don’t acknowledge the contribution of your employees. Lack of appreciation can confuse even the most persistent and most motivated people. Even if they have been a value to the company, you should take the credit. This will make their self-esteem hit the bottom.

#5 Elicit jealousy and competition. How can you do that? Choose your favorites as well as the black sheep and let the games begin. Let them see that not everybody has the same chance for a bonus or appraisal from you. Not everybody is a valuable part of the community you are leading.

#6 Hide and distort information. Another way to suppress the atmosphere of trust is to hide information and distort information. Manipulation and attempts to control the environment will show the employees that it is you who are in charge and have complete and indisputable control.

To sum up, the loss of trust does not require a lot of time so you should isolate yourself from your employees completely. Don’t respond to e-mails, don’t meet with them, don’t focus on team building, don’t give feedback and under any circumstance do not show them that you are interested in their work. Then they will leave you alone.

NOTE:

The six strategies above are a grotesque description of action of managers who are unaware of what they are doing. It is a word of caution. If you recognize any of these behaviors in yourself, it is high time you started working on conscious trust building on the team.