Have you ever had a team member drop the ball on you?

You know, when she initially came in she was amazing.?

She was CRUSHING it!??

And then, some bad habits came in.?

Maybe she’s got her mobile phone constantly attached to her, or maybe she’s rocking up late or forgetting lots of things right now.

And here’s the thing.?

Because you were really nice from the get go, you ignored some of those things initially. You didn’t set boundaries. You didn’t lay out your expectations. Then it became harder and harder to pick them up and say something about it.

You didn't want anything to get in the way of forming a good relationship. You wanted her to feel comfortable. You wanted her to enjoy working with you.?

And now unfortunately, you’re thinking about it a LOT in your head. You’re mounting this HUGE response, getting more and more resentful simply because you haven’t expressed what you need to.?

There’s a story going on…

‘She should know the right thing to do… Isn’t she a little bit lazy? Why is she doing this to me? Doesn’t she value me and my business?’?

And we make it all about ourselves…

And then, through this story in our heads we communicate our frustration to other people... but we don’t say a thing to her.?

Why??

Confrontation. We hate it. We want to avoid it at all costs.?

We hope that she is going to pull her socks up and get better. That she’s just going to pick up. And the problem is that now we are proving her guilty until she proves herself innocent.?

We’re creating this giant mountain out of a molehill.?

And we’re avoiding her. Awkward! We want to say something. We want to say everything to everyone else instead of her and she doesn’t know what the hell is going on!

Until one day, you can’t hold it in any longer.?

It can either come out as passive aggressive, super defensive, ‘BAM!’ in your face EVERYONE gets offended!?

OR

It can come out so sugar coated that she doesn’t even know what on earth you’re talking about.?

Either way, now you have an under performer.?

So what do we do??

We’ve got to take this on the chin. We’ve got to realise OUR fault.?

WE employed these people and WE need to get them up to scratch.?

WE need to set them up to succeed. And if WE have not set clear expectations and boundaries right from day one, then WE need to bear that responsibility.?

Everything you ignore, you allow it to happen.?

Be direct. Get clear with staff (right from the start!) Then they know what is expected of them, the why attached to it and how to behave moving forwards.?

Get really clear on those three things. And deliver it while you’re not in this quietly raging, passive aggressive, stressed out state.?

Deliver it at an appropriate time. When you can show compassion. Seek first to understand what’s going on and why, and then deliver your expectations directly without sugar coating them.

The more clear you are the more kind you are.

As soon as we realise that as leaders we are responsible for everything that goes on around us, then we can take a change. Then we can feel like it’s not about everyone else. It’s about us.?

And if we can change ourselves, then we can take back control.

Love,

Fern

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