You are not a leader if...

One of my greatest mentors of all time that also used to be my boss once taught me a great lesson. 

I was eyeing a promotion and was given a troubled multi store territory to manage and organize. As part of the restructuring, I was introduced to a few new managers for the stores that were hired from outside industry. The trick was, I had nothing to do with their hiring process nor their training. 

One of the managers was a lady who worked in telecom prior to being hired for my company. Strong personality, and eager to prove herself but not easy to manage. She questioned my every move and I could see her staff also didn't get along with her. In fact, she was the hardest person I had to manage. After a few months of hard work, no results and constant struggles, I met with my mentor and I told him I cannot continue to work with this manager and suggested we move her to another territory. This is where I learned one of the most important lessons of my leadership career. He told me

If you cannot turn your most troublesome manager around and make a superstar out of her, you are not a leader the organization can rely on. 

If you are in the business of leading people, parting ways should be the last thing on your mind when you face a challenging personality. If you see the termination as a sign of YOUR failure, you will try your very best to succeed and make things work. 

In my case, after many more months, my new manager became a superstar and was invited to all star dinner with the CEO and SVP of the company at the end of the fiscal year. 

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