Who’s to blame when an employee fails?
Well, seems like it should be the employee. They didn’t work hard enough; they didn’t listen.
But maybe it was us.
When an employee fails, we have to ask how. Was it because they weren’t engaged, or is it because we didn’t give them the guidance they needed? HBR posits that maybe, sometimes, often, it’s because of us.
One failure and we’re off the rails. We begin to micromanage — and with every check-in or follow-up, we lose our teammate more and more. We show a lack of trust, and the teammate responds with a lack of confidence.
What we need to do is trust the people we work with. We need to expect everything they can give. We need to set the bar high – and trust them to reach it.
We need to give them the tools to do their best, but let them get there on their own. It’s the final showing of capability.
