“Dealing with employee issues can be difficult, but not dealing with them can be worse” ~Paul Foster
As a leader, you will inevitably come across people that you work with or lead that could be deemed as “problem employees.” They underperform, they breed toxic conversations, they erode culture, and they negatively influence others they work with.
You and your organization cannot afford to let things continue on in this way, but often we take the wrong approach to helping people change.
The issues and problems they are working through are likely like an iceberg – you can only see the top 10% of what’s going on. The rest of it you’re probably guessing at.
Take time to understand more before you jump to solutions. There may be issues with other employees, there may be changes you need to make personally as a leader, or there may be difficult things outside of work in this person’s life that are causing them to act negatively.
Having compassion and empathy allows you to see the whole picture clearly, and spend the time to understand the situation so that you can solve the right problem. Think of it as a root cause analysis – what is really causing the issues? How can you give guidance, cast a vision, and set their expectations higher so they can shift their approach?
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