I was recently working with a manager in a social work organization who was feeling stressed about having to confront an employee who was undermining him as a leader. This staff person was openly doing her own thing, versus what she was instructed to do and it was leading to negative consequences. One impact this employee’s behavior had on the team was that other employees were asking whether they too could deviate from the plan and in this situation that was not a good idea.
My client was upset with this person and wanted to reinforce her needing to follow the plan but in the coaching session he kept talking about the strengths of this employee – how she could engage youth in a group setting, her knowledge of youth development, and her willingness to help out in crisis situations. It became clear that his stress was about 2 things: 1) not feeling confident in giving negative feedback to his staff person, with one of the reasons being that the employee was doing good work as well as being difficult. 2) worrying about what would happen during and after the conversation with the employee – would she quit? Would she become toxic in the workplace?
It turns out the discussion went very well and in recognizing the employee’s strengths, together they came up with a shift in her role that played to what she does best. My client acknowledged that getting clear on his message ahead of time instead of just being angry and letting it boil over into his relationship with this staff person was a good way to go since he could present as calm and together and be sincere in appreciating this employee’s strengths.
What are the unique strengths of your employees and are you leveraging them to benefit your organization? If an employee is getting under your skin, do they become “the bad employee” in your eyes or are you able to see that they have both positive and negative traits? What difficult conversations are you avoiding with staff members?
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Although I agree that when having to provide constructive criticism to an employee that you should lead up with the employees’ strength, I disagree with the outcome of what it sounds like the main objective was. It sounds to me as though the manager still failed to overcome one of the stresses (#2). I say this as it seems that in order to overcome this personal issue he in turn may have set an expectation with other team members that this particular employee was “awarded” for their inappropriate behaviour, since she was given shift in her role because he still had the fear of worrying about what would happen during and after the conversation with the employee – would she quit? Would she become toxic in the workplace?
It sounds like the manager still took the easy route instead of dealing with the original issue at hand.
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