Career is a journey and sometimes you are the driver and at other times you are being driven. The more time you spend in your work life, you start climbing the ladder and have people working for you – either helping you achieve your goals / dreams and at times or just doing some mundane task that you must not spend time doing yourself. There are times you get frustrated because people who do these tasks for you, either do not do it as well as you yourself would have done or do not demonstrate the same passion that you have for your dreams. Then there could be some irritants when people do not show as much responsibility – may be in trivial things that they do e.g. not arriving to work on time, not capturing the expenses with as much clarity as you expect etc. You want to reprimand such people. I have been reprimanded many times and have reprimanded the people who work / worked with me as well. Over the past few years I have observed that there are rules to reprimanding, and some of these that I feel strongly about, are as follows:
Keep it short and simple – You must get your message out spending as less time as you can. You cannot just go on and on assaulting people who work with you and drive them to a point where they stop caring and get frustrated or feel bullied.
Focus on the problem – I have seen many people who start reprimanding and become judgemental about the person. People make mistakes and or get casual, a behaviour that needs to be corrected, but these problems do not make people bad. You should isolate the problem from the person, and hate the problem not the person. Remember, these people have some qualities and abilities for which you hired them in the first place.
Privacy – I have seen that people lose their regard for you if you start reprimanding them in front of others. The biggest risk of this is that you will lose the loyalty of your people. Not only of the people you reprimand, but also of the people you reprimand in front of.
Politeness – Anger is your biggest enemy. I have personally seen the negatives of being angry. You must be clear and drive the point across but you must not be unkind with your words. The objecting of reprimanding a person is to correct the situation / behaviour.
Give a chance – The moment you have people who do not behave the way you would like them to or do things in the manner that you would like them to, it is important to give them a benefit of doubt and an opportunity to change. Many times, we start assuming, that people are aware of how you would like them to behave. Every organization is different and have different work cultures, which is why even the most experienced people may not be used to your specific way of working. So, if you want their loyalty, explain to them, train them and give them an opportunity to change.
For a good leader, it is important to develop soft skills not just for networking and business development, but also people management. While doing people management you will encounter situations which may not be in line with your working style and you may need to correct people, and knowing how to do so is equally important if you want to lead from the front.
“There are times you get frustrated because people who do these tasks for you, either do not do it as well as you yourself would have done or do not demonstrate the same passion that you have for your dreams.”
“You should isolate the problem from the person, and hate the problem not the person.”
These lines represents things in a way that is accurate and true to life.
Great blog,