SET YOUR BOUNDARIES
'quote of the week'
"It is unfortunate that we can't buy many business executives for what they are worth and sell them for what they think they worth"
You have to, right from day one, be totally on top of the discipline issue. Remember earlier about how looking after your team or friends can be a bit like being a parent? well, as a parent you pretty well have to set boundaries and practice zero tolerance to survive. Give 'em an inch and they'll take the whole rope. If you are seen to be 'soft' the'll take advantage. The good thing with clear boundaries and zero tolerance is you have a finite line - a yardstick by which you can judge everything. All you have to do is ask, 'Is this a breach of the rules?' If it is, stop it. If you do allow it, where do you stop?
Say one of your clear boundaries is timekeeping (it might be dress, but just say it's timekeeping). if one minute late is fine, what about two? if two is fine, what about three? And so on until people are wandering in at whatever time they feel like. But if you don't allow it, then that's the end of the story. You don't have to think about that particular issue anymore. Whereas if you do allow infringements, small breaches, you are forever having to consider, 'is it a step too far?' 'can i wrest control back?' 'How far am i prepared to go?'
This doesn't mean you need to have hundreds of rules and be ridiculously inflexible. It means that you need to decide on your few keys boundaries that are important to you and to the team or to your business. Make them clear and count. And make them firm.
Remember you are dealing with a team - I will stress this again and again throughout this write up - and not an individual. You might feel that for each and any person an exception can be made, but you aren't dealing with individuals - you are dealing with a team or group of people. If you are seen to be soft on one individual - Then you must be soft on all. If you allow one to wander in late, them all must be allowed to wander in late. If one person can get away with breaking the rules, then all must be allowed.
The good leader is firm on inappropriate behavior because this sends out a clear message to all other team members, The message that you are good, firm, in-control sort of leader who sets more store by what the team can achieve collectively than by being thought of as an easy-going, laid - back, nice person. Yes, individually some of the team may rate you pretty cool if you let them get away with murder, but the team will collectively rubbish you.
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