Leadership Politics

We often define ourselves as "only human" and excuse mistakes we make. But the mistakes we toss away in the business world can have a devastating effect. My apologies if you were expecting a dissertation on whether I like Obama or Romney, the fact is, I don't like either one of them due to several different issues with their politics. I can't say who i'll vote for because I haven't seen the first presidential debate yet. But I digress.

Any business, from an office to a dollar store, has some sort of competition going on between employees. The question is whether or not that competition is healthy or not. Everyone wants to get ahead, but employees often tend to bait each other or find ways to back a competitior into a serious situation. These situations involve dealing with clients, supervisors, bosses, or customers. That's normally where the money begins to slide through your fingers and out the door.

• Shouting is often an easy giveaway in a store. If you are struggling with an employee, focus on getting them to a quiet area away from the customers, and never raise your voice during the situation.
• Pranks are often seen in offices, and can have a positive impact, however, that good side is quickly lessened when those pranks damage equipment and clothing.
• Making other employees feel uncomfortable by handing them clients or customers that competitors know they will struggle with.

These examples are easy to portray a situation where you may lose business. It's petty, undermines the brand/service of the industry, and causes a breakdown in the machine of your company/firm. Lost opportunities present lost profit, which no one really wants in an economy that's struggling to find firm ground.

The most important way to fix this is often lost on leadership. That's usually because it's the leadership that can fix this.When the staff is clowning around or not handling situations correctly, that usually amplifies a reflection of friction within the leadership, and the fact that leadership is often showing that friction in front of their own staff. Yet the leadership tends to take its frustration out on the staff instead of attempting to fix issues and problems with fair play and constructive meetings.

Those symptoms will show up where you want them to show up the least, in the face to face actions of your staff members with your customer/client base, right where the rubber meets the road. Executives and partners don't often figure out how they can disagree on something and continue to move forward, instead picking fights or passive aggressively slowing progress for the other executive and their team. At that point, the staff, less experienced, not always as mature, tends to show this in many different, uncomfortable ways. Suddenly the goal is not to move forward, but rather to prevent a spiral or retreat.

Our decisions as leaders make for larger ripples in the pool of our surroundings. The emotional responses as staff members are something we can clamp down and do without. This is business, not a soap opera, not an action movie. If you want to be in an action movie, learn explosives, how to start fires, and how to be a stuntman. I KNOW all of those things, but I decided I didn't want to be in an action movie. When you're in an office, you should be afraid of losing your hand due to a black powder charge going off incorrectly or getting shocked by a faulty lighting rig. When you're in a store, it should be about the customers you're working with. 

So as a leader it is your choice to move forward, just as in the position of staff you don't always have to "follow" the decisions of your leader if they have been tested and are not seemingly wise. The true answer to good business is always common ground, good people, and focused goals.