Welcome Back!
The art of consequences defines a leader! You must be willing to administer consequences for people’s bad behavior. If you’re not, you need to do the honorable thing and step down. Immediately. Nothing demoralizes good workers or ruins cultures more quickly than not holding people accountable. Lazy or dysfunctional employees poison the well so that no good water flows from it. It is impossible to have an authentically healthy workplace when people are allowed to not produce, or to act in disruptive ways. Choices have consequences. Stop feeling sorry for the people who are facing consequences, and start feeling sorry for the person who would really appreciate the job and do it well. Nothing is more dangerous for the problem individual than to be allowed to get away with unacceptable behavior. You have the opportunity to help someone gain control of themselves and succeed. If you don’t exercise this responsibility, you are setting them up for a much harder fall sometime in the future. When you allow or encourage them to act up, you are feeding their dysfunction. You’re also hurting the team you’re tasked with protecting. If you are the reason the problem isn’t being fixed, then ultimately you will be held accountable for it. Just because you have evaded responsibility so far, does not mean you always will. Your choices will catch up with you someday. It’s far better to fix the mess in whatever state it is in right now, than to let it fester until it erupts one day and destroys everything in its path. You will not escaped unharmed from such a scenario. I’ve witnessed that time and again when bad leaders thought they were above the rules and the law. The clock of accountability is ticking.
Until next time I’ll be praying for you to man up and face whatever is broken and then get to the business of fixing it!