Which Shoulder Calls Your Leadership Shots?

It never ceases to amaze me when I hear about some of the antics that happen in the workplace.

When it comes to managing your people it takes a certain “Je ne sais quoi ” that many simply do not and will probably never possess and in terms of Leadership? forget it!

Just yesterday a classic case was brought to my attention where Julie, a dedicated employee of the company for just under 4 years, was standing next to her boss in the client free reception area when her phone rang. Julie reached in to her pocket to busy the call and continued with what she was doing. Did Julie’s boss have an issue with this? apparently not as she didn’t respond nor comment.

4 minutes later however the game changed and Julie realised that her boss did in fact have an issue with the phone ringing as Julie (and all staff) received an email stating (without too much of a preamble either) that “Mobile Phones Are NOT To Be Used During Working Hours”

I would urge you to reserve judgement on this act of passive aggression just for a moment and let’s take a look at one of the stories doing the rounds in the news today where a survey of 2,000 workers by jobs site Monster.co.uk has shown that more than one in four workers has taken time off this year because of their boss.

One in eight say they’ve been bullied by senior members of staff, while a similar number have admitted to being scared of them. Complaints against bosses included never giving praise and paying unfair wages. Two out of five respondents said they have quit their job because of their boss.

Ok, now it’s time to revisit Julie’s situation. where do you think she will fall within the results of this survey? More importantly where will Julie’s boss fall on a scale of 1 – 10 of leadership? Will she be wearing horns or sporting a halo? I think we both know the answer here.

You may have or had a boss that displayed similar actions or you may indeed be in a managerial / leadership position and are finding it difficult to deal with such situations when they are presented to you and it doesn’t matter where you start just as long as you do start to understand WHY and more importantly HOW you can identify your areas of strength and areas in need of continual improvement.

Just imagine being Julie’s boss and when her phone rang, you had the courage, confidence and were able to address it face to face simply by saying something like “Thanks for busying your call whilst in reception Julie. As you know, we do have a policy on personal mobile phone use especially when in client areas. Can we bear this in mind for the future as there could have been clients in reception and it would have looked unprofessional”

A bold and assertive resolution delivered in light conversation, job done! Would Julie have taken offence at that style of management? Of course not and she will be respecting her boss as an effective leader

Take your strengths profile here: http://www.youniqueconsulting.com/leadership-development/