A Team Member goes Rogue – Now what?

Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - Joe Kiedinger

As I write this week’s WOW, I am sitting in hot, hot, hot Texas; a state I love! Texas is a hotbed of Servant Leadership companies. These leaders understand dignity-based cultures and therefore, is our secondary market.

Yesterday, I was coaching a group of managers on this idea of dignity and leading through a servant leadership lens. A major part of leadership is to understand your own dignity and then understand the dignity of others. Prior to this session, the managers completed their About Me Survey, (our proprietary system that reveals a person’s dignity and rules of interaction) and also sent the survey to their employees. They began to understand both their good day and bad day behavior. Let’s face it, we all can have our bad days! We must face this reality and study it. What is it that other people see when we are having a bad day? Reversely, what is it others see when we have a good day?

Once the managers learned about themselves, we began to study each unique employee. It was then that two managers, who work in the same store, pointed out an employee with whom they are struggling. “She’s going rogue on us!,” one manager proclaimed.

The second manager chimed in, “These good day behaviors are few and far between! This survey did not come out right for her (referring to the employee).”

I then asked her to pull out her bad day behavior sheet. They looked up this person’s top five dignity traits and, sure enough, the behaviors described matched what they where experiencing. “So now what do we do?” one manager asked.

When people live on the bad day of their dignity, they feel undignified. It’s the job of the leader to sit down and point out the wonderful motivations and qualities that make that person great. When an employee goes rogue, their dignity is being violated. This can happen at home, which is then brought into the workplace. It must be talked about.

Traditional thinking is that what goes on in a someone’s personal life is none of our business. If you’re the leader, I disagree. After all, leadership is an invasion into one’s personal life. We are human beings. If this statement were true, why is this person bringing their personal heartache to work? If they are, explore it. It’s called compassionate listening. The world needs more of this dignity-based leadership.

Are you brave enough to make a serious impact in a person’s life? Do you want to make a difference? Then go there! Help them and don’t give up easily. If you’ve done everything you can and they still are negatively affecting your culture, it’s time to compassionately let them go. However, you must look in the mirror and honestly say, “I went there and I truly tried to help.” You will find that the vast majority of people will feel you care and can change…so go there!

Joe Kiedinger

ACTION PLAN: With whom will you go there?

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