September is a great time to re-energize your team from the summer, and really get a strong go at the rest of the year. Sometimes this can be tough though, especially if they’ve had time to work themselves into bad habits.
Employees that have come with or have developed bad habits – such as showing up late consistently, poor attendance, poor productivity, poor attitude, etc. – is the fault of leadership.
Why might you ask, is leadership to blame for employees’ bad habits? Easy. Everything that is wrong with the business, is leadership’s fault.
From the very beginning, every leader is responsible for finding and nurturing talent that aligns with the organization’s core values and purpose. Skills are important, yes, but not nearly as important as ‘attitude.’ When it comes to finding top talent, the job of leadership is to:
So… when you find that some team members have developed bad habits, it’s your responsibility to take immediate action. Your culture is only as good as the worst behaviour you are willing to tolerate. If you allow bad habits to go uncorrected, your entire organization will notice and think that this is now the new norm.
If you cannot break bad habits in employees, then generate a generous severance package. End of discussion.
Even when I ‘fire fast,’ someone will still always come up to me within an hour or so and say; “What took you so long” or; “Thank you.” Most often, terminations are a result of the employee not being a fit – in other words, a culture mismatch. Very rarely have I heard of someone being terminated because of skills.
It won’t feel easy, but the results are worth the work.
