Silence is your permission to proceed.
Silence is acceptance and permission all at the same time.
Turning a blind eye or not calling out poor performance or negative behaviours is a one-way ticket to trouble for every level of people leadership.
This is why….
If we see or hear things that aren’t as they should be and FAIL to call it, then we are silently saying “that’s fine, you have my permission to keep doing that”. Remember the classic saying that the standard you walk past is the standard you set. Hhhmmmmm.
If we let it GO, we let it GROW.
Our complacency nurtures the negative. BUT, if we call it out, we create a different future.
I was recently leading a group of senior leaders on a development program. Each of them conceded that they had failed to call out poor behaviour in the past (we all have). But they all also said that they felt awkward about calling something out that’s happening now, after failing to do so in the past. They felt like hypocrites. They felt that calling it after failing to previously makes them look bad.
I completely disagree. This scenario needs a RESET conversation. Calling it FROM NOW ON is acceptable in almost every circumstance.
Here's how to have the reset conversation
If an employee has been late consistently and you have failed to call it, then RESET.
Explain that you failed to call it in the past and that that was a failing of yours. But that FROM NOW ON you are onto it and need the behaviour to change. Use the word RESET to demonstrate that we both need to change.
The key to any RESET conversation is the FUTURE, not the past.
Lateness. Sickness. Bad attitude. Poor performance. Not good enough….
All of these can be sorted with a RESET conversation. This requires us to be vulnerable. First WE have to accept and explain that we took our eye off the ball. Then explain that FROM NOW ON we are fully back on track and standards need to be reset by both of us.
Ask yourself: