Being a leader comes with lots of responsibilities. Honestly, if you are a small business owner like me, the success of your business largely depends on how well you lead your team. It’s true that every employee’s actions are their own but good leaders have to know how to manage employees to get the best out of them. Three months ago I found myself in a very strange position which led to a surprising outcome. I believe I’m what a lot of people call a soft leader.
There was an issue in the warehouse of the business, Zedi, and I found out that a member of staff was responsible. I was pretty upset when I found out and for a minute considered writing it off this time. But I did some more thinking and saw that I had three options;
- To confront him
- To change how we do things in the business
- To do both.
I believed the best solution was to do both. The changing of systems in the business was not as much of a problem as the query I had to give. As a laissez-faire leader, or a soft leader, some topics are often hard to bring up but this was absolutely necessary. I thought about the appropriate sanctions and called for a meeting.
At the meeting, I tried my possible best to be as clear and concise as possible. I was a bit stern as well because it was a serious matter and informed my employee about the sanctions for what he did. He apologized and I accepted his apology. I also informed him about our new procedures and he agreed to adhere to them. When I left the meeting I felt relieved. I had done what I needed to do and I was glad but I also wondered if this was truly the best solution. You see this employee was very sensitive and I felt perhaps a milder approach would have been better but it was too late now. My soft leader sense was tingling.
Two weeks after our meeting and implementation of new measures, my employee sent in his resignation. His reasons didn’t make much sense to me. I was surprised to see it initially because I believed we had gone past the hard part. I invited him to have a talk but he said his mind was made up. I decided to adhere to his wishes without pressing any further. It did make me think and I came to the conclusion that some people will come and go and that’s ok. We may have been heading in that direction already but it just got hastened a little.
I replaced my employee a few weeks later and from now on I’m not even upset about voicing out when there is an issue from the get-go. I believe my values have to be carried across no matter what and if someone who comes to join my team isn’t all right with this it’s better to let them go and find a place that works for them. I’m still and will always be a laissez-faire leader (soft leader) but I have learned from this experience that queries and sanctions should always be given in order, with a warm caring voice of cause.
