The Coaching Role: Inspiring and Motivating
3
- Consistency
If you are a leader who tends to be impulsive, or if you
have high highs and low lows, hear these words of
warning: Your inconsistencies can make your people
paranoid. You will have great difficulty taking people to
higher levels of performance if they’re not sure that what
you want is what you want.
Example
Sean has a longstanding department rule: Plans to
take vacation days in conjunction with major holidays
must be submitted to the office manager at least 90
days in advance.
With Christmas only three weeks away, his most
productive telesales agent, Jim, notified Sean that he
wanted to take four vacation days the week after
Christmas to be with his fiancée in California. After much
inner turmoil, Sean reluctantly agreed.
Two days later, Sean’s least productive telesales agent
approached him with a similar request. Sean told him
about the department rule.
“But you let Jim go,” the employee pointed out quickly.
“And I’ve been here longer than he has.”
What should Sean have done?
Example Analysis
It’s more a question of what he shouldn’t have done. If a
reasonable rule is established for good, profit-related
reasons, it should be obeyed, barring unforeseen family
emergencies, etc.
Naturally, if the rule isn’t reasonable, it should be
abolished. In this case, Sean allowed a rule to be broken
because the rule breaker was a recognized good performer.
But do you see the can of worms he has opened? Do you
see the message he is communicating to his team: Rules
are rules until I say they aren’t? That will be a hard
message for Sean to live down.