Never Wear Your Style as a Badge of Honor

I will never forget I was sitting in a clients office, this office was an open concept, everyone in the same room. The General Manager is standing in the middle of the room, on the phone, tearing one of his sales people to shreds. The whole place is dead silent. Everyone can see him and hear what he is saying.He is putting this guy in his place, his style is crushing this guy, and he gets off the phone and his VP walks up and high fives him and they are celebrating the fact that he just spiked this kid into the end zone.

I remember thinking this is not what we’ve taught, this is not what how you build leadership.

I walked up to him and said, "Hey can is see you for a second"?

We walked outside and I said "hey whats going on?"

He said "oh that guy is just needs to do his job."

"Timeout a second", I interrupted, "did you want anymore productivity out of him the rest of the week?"

"What do you mean?"

"Understand, based on the way you just went after him he’s done for the week. His head is now trash for the week."

He rushed to his own defense, "Well I'm a super red personality, that's just me, direct.  

"As a leader you can't wear your style as a badge of honor. You don’t get to pound your chest and say, "that's just me". When you are leading that way you are leading from your gut not from a guideline."

This was a wakeup moment for him, because he realized not only did he ruin productivity from this one guy, but he was setting a bad example of leadership in his office.