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When is it Ok to be stern or severe?
Like I said to my colleague, when relating with humans, the deal is finding a perfect blend between being firm and being flexible, Knowing when to be brutal and knowing when to be considerate. Most importantly, the deal is setting boundaries, creating standards and affirming authority upon first meeting because what one allows at the first point of contact becomes the rule of thumb.
About two days ago, my colleague was having some challenges with one of the field workers under his supervision. Our Madam had already given him order to mobilize the field workers for an operation that needed to be executed and concluded that same day. According to my colleague, he had passed the instructions from our Madam across to the team lead via WhatsApp and even placed a call through but up until 12pm, he still hasn't gotten any feedback if the work has started or not and our Madam was already calling him for an update. I saw my colleague panic, not knowing if to pick our madam's call or not.
His phone rang severally with a call from our Madam but he didn't pick up. He just kept calling the team lead guy on his other phone and when he wasn't hearing from him, he yelled out of frustration, "what sort of problem is this God!" At that point, I stopped what I was doing and asked him what's wrong? He explained to me how they had a job to execute and complete that day and his eye on the field, who happens to be the team lead, is not reachable.
In my colleague’s words, "if I report him to madam now and he gets in trouble, it will be like I'm wicked". At that point I got really confused.
I wondered why he was not being stern so I said to him and even questioned him that, “here's someone putting your job on the line, causing the company money and you are shielding him? Ok let's be flexible and not be rigid, let's assume something happened to him right? Well, reporting to Madam cannot be termed wickedness but professionalism because first of all, Madam would swing into action and find an alternative while investigating if all is well with the team lead.”
I advised my colleague to inform our Madam immediately of the development, further citing the dangers of failing to do so. At first, he agreed to call our madam back and inform her of what’s happening. But then, he quickly changed his mind again and said let him give the field guy some time, probably he would come around.
Well, the field guy never got back to my colleague and our madam got a lot of complaints from our business associates who had employed our services. Like I had advised the guy, Madam was angry that he didn't report the issue as soon as possible and she had to find out from our clients.
Our madam was even more angry because she kept calling and my colleague didn't deem it fit to pick up any of her calls or even return them early enough. Our madam, without wasting time, immediately dropped my colleague from the field job and that was how he missed out on the juicy benefits that the job would have come with upon conclusion.
The whole experience hit my colleague so hard that he was thrown into lamentation. He kept crying about how he would have listened to me and I just smiled. You know, he wouldn't have been the lesson if he had been firm, stern or severe in handling the situation.
If it was any consolation to him, I couldn't really tell but I did speak with him further and shared with him my management style. I told him that I had managed different categories of People and I know how funny human characters play out. Basically, I'm not about to let someone ruin all my good work with their recklessness.
I let my colleague in on how I'm very considerate until someone is about to put me in trouble or take advantage of me or my hard work. It is at that point of my interest being threatened that I go all out in ascertaining authority or being brutal and severe.
You know my deal is, if a person will not consider me, I also will not have their interest in mind. Technically, some people are looking for who to step on, who to take advantage of and who to use as a fall guy and I will not be the one to be placed in such categories.
Above is my response to the Inleo prompt for Jan, you can participate HERE
Posted Using INLEO