Drop the stick.

While waiting in line to purchase a small rug today, I noticed that the woman ahead appeared to be giving the cashier a really hard time. She was returning some pillows, and the process seemed to be taking longer than it should, as the line behind grew bigger by the minute. The cashier appeared to be doing his best to get the return over and done with so he could move on to the next customer. It was our turn now and he was clearly feeling the time pressure, doing his best to be friendly and scan our items as quickly as possible. Suddenly his supervisor appeared and started yelling at him in front of us and the rest of the line for allowing that woman to return the pillows. She publicly berated him, saying the only reason that woman went to him was because he was new, and she must have known she could get away with it.

We quickly learned that this woman had cut off a manufacturer's tag, and without that tag, the item was not returnable as per the rules of this store. The cashier apologized, explaining that he didn’t realize and assured her that he had made sure to check her receipt and confirm that she had purchased the item from that store the day before. “Doesn’t matter”, the supervisor yelled, “you’re now in really BIG trouble…” And with that nebulous threat and cloud looming over his head, she walked away, leaving him, us, and the rest of the viewing party all standing there awkwardly. ?The cashier sighed, cheeks flushed with embarrassment, appearing deflated and returned to finish cashing us out, looking worried.

As I walked away, I thought about how what we witnessed, a series of small, individual decisions, inextricably negatively impacted so many people. We have the woman returning the pillows, who likely knew that by cutting off the manufacturer's tags, she would not be able to return them unless she found a cashier who was new and inexperienced. If this is true, she didn’t seem to consider or care about the impact of her 'getting away' with returning them to a new employee who was just learning on the job. Then we have the supervisor, (who, instead of recognizing that her employee in good faith was trying to do right by the customer and the company by checking to ensure that the item was purchased at the store), focused instead only on his mistake, and to make matters worse, publicly shamed him for it, as though it was all that mattered. She had the choice to focus on what was done right and speak privately with him about the mistake, empowering him for what he was doing well and coaching him on what he needed to be aware of still and to learn. And, we have the cashier – clearly learning a new job that he needs, left visibly anxious and worrying about the repercussions of his mistake, shamed in front of a bunch of strangers, likely impacting his interactions with customers and possibly family and friends later throughout the day and in the days ahead.

If several of the characters in this story valued the well-being of others as a priority on par with their own well-being, this story would have likely played out very differently. The supervisor could have used what happened as a private coaching opportunity – choosing to build up her employee rather than tearing him down. ??Alternately, instead of trying to dupe a new employee and get away with returning something that was not returnable, the woman with the pillows could have just owned her error in cutting off the manufacturer tag, accepting it was un-returnable, as per the rules of this store, and this whole saga would have been avoided.

This mundane set of interactions in a store on a random Sunday illustrates very simply the power and impact of how we choose to show up for others. In far too many workplaces, supervisors see their jobs as that of being a ‘boss’ with a traditional notion that by wielding a 'big stick' you will get the most out of your staff. Reality is more like this… Yes, people will work for bosses who yell and diminish them – but not because of the stick…because they need the job. They will put up with it and just do the job because, in many situations, they don’t feel like they have any other choice. Now maybe the supervisor in this story has a boss above her who treats her this way, and so she is just doing the same to this cashier – sometimes, that’s how the cycle of toxic leadership spreads in an organization... Or maybe she just feels bigger and more important when she can publicly shame her staff, addressing her own insecurities and low self-worth by falsely elevating her importance and feeling of power at his expense.? Regardless of the cause, this is an example of how toxic leadership operates, slowly poisoning work environments like a noxious invisible gas, and assuredly, in a retail setting it will, without a doubt, negatively impact the health and well-being of your front-line staff and your customers’ experience.

As leaders, whatever your position in an organization’s hierarchy, you have tremendous power and impact on the lives of your staff, who are the lifeblood of your teams and organization. Your staff, people just like you, live complex lives full of many joys and sufferings, and just like you, want to feel valued and appreciated for their workplace contributions. Your job is to build them up, coach them, and guide them. The greatest leadership superpower is found not in 'big stick leadership; but rather in learning how to lead guided by the heart. Heart-driven leadership, rooted in genuine care and compassion for both clients/customers and staff, is possibly the hardest to do, not unlike balancing on a high wire, but when done well, it has the power to move mountains unmovable by ‘big stick’ leadership.

Now someone please convince Trump of that.