Transformational Leadership. Social Entrepreneurship

A leader can give carrots or sticks depending on the circumstances and on the performance of team members and followers. As a leader, you are duty-bound to recognize good work and reprimand bad ones.

Some leaders though fail to provide feedback, especially in cases where a member or a follower fails to deliver on commitments and results. It’s good if the leader enjoys good relationship with the followers and subordinates. But such good relationship may also be the source of cowardice in confronting the underperformers.

Here’s the cowardly leader’s guide to rewarding losers in the organization.

Beat around the bush.

During your leadership pep talk time, tell that the organization is doing “okay but we can do better” or “we’re surviving” and other such abstract inanities that skirt the real issue of performance.

Don’t confront.

Just let things be. Your subordinates and followers are smart people. You trust them. They have delivered with their commitments before; they will do so again this time. Just give them time.

Assume they’re just having a bad day.

Your underperformers might be having a bad day. Maybe some not-so-nice things happened at home. As a good leader, you should understand where your subordinates are coming from.

Close your eyes and pray that things will be better tomorrow.

You’ve had bad bays. And worse ones, too. This, too, shall pass and everything will be back to normal.

You may not be displaying all these things at once. But at one time or another, you tend to be afraid to confront and you just let things be. As a leader, you are duty-bound to ensure good performance. Leadership is not just about relationships. It’s finding balance between results and relationships.

If the above action items describe your attitude, I wonder how you could have stayed in leadership for so long. Wake up! Take a look around you. You’re dragging the organization down and you are a poor excuse of a leader.

Time to suit up, put on courage and turn your organization around!

image credit: RunningAgile

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