Speaker 1: Helping leaders motivate their people to a higher level of
Speaker 1: performance through strong human relations, team building, and goal achieving.
Speaker 1: This is the seven Minute Leadership Podcast with your host
Speaker 1: Paul Fellavledo.
Speaker 2: Hello everyone, and welcome to this seven minute leadership podcast.
Speaker 2: It's episode three eighty seven, and today we're going to
Speaker 2: talk about a hard truth that every leader will face
Speaker 2: at some point. What to do when one of your
Speaker 2: team members disappears when the going gets tough. And maybe
Speaker 2: you've seen this before. You've got someone on the team
Speaker 2: who always seems to have a mysterious illness or personal
Speaker 2: emergency the moment something inconvenient hits the schedule, an extra shift,
Speaker 2: a big event, a scorching hot day, and they vanish
Speaker 2: again and again. So let's be clear. This is not
Speaker 2: about the occasional sick day or family emergency. We're talking
Speaker 2: about a pattern, and patterns reveal priorities. So let's get
Speaker 2: into that. This isn't a scheduling problem. It's a trust problem.
Speaker 2: When someone calls off to avoid tough work, they're not
Speaker 2: just skipping a shift, they're breaking trust. Your team is
Speaker 2: counting on each other to show up, especially when things
Speaker 2: get hard, and when one person keeps opting out of
Speaker 2: the hard stuff. The message is loud and clear. I'm
Speaker 2: only here when it's easy. So leaders, listen up. Your
Speaker 2: culture gets built around the behaviors you allow. If you
Speaker 2: let this slide, you're not just enabling one person, You're
Speaker 2: showing everyone else that reliability is optional. And here is
Speaker 2: what this does to the team, and who suffers the most.
Speaker 2: The people who do show up, the ones sweating it out,
Speaker 2: the ones working doubles, the ones who feel the weight
Speaker 2: of being dependable, and someone else plays hide and seek
Speaker 2: with accountability. What happens next is incredibly predictable. Resentment builds,
Speaker 2: morale drops, team cohesion breaks down. You can't lead a
Speaker 2: high performance team with cracks like that. Here's the leadership challenge.
Speaker 2: Stop hoping and start acting. Hope is not a leadership strategy.
Speaker 2: You can't hope they get better. You have to address
Speaker 2: the issues. So here's what you do. Step one. Call
Speaker 2: out the pattern, not the person. When you sit down
Speaker 2: with this employee, keep the emotion out of it. Say
Speaker 2: something like, I've noticed a pattern where you've called off
Speaker 2: every time there's an extra event or when extreme weather
Speaker 2: is expected. It's becoming hard for your team. To count
Speaker 2: on you. I want to understand what's going on. You're
Speaker 2: not accusing, you're observing, you're not punishing, You're looking for answers,
Speaker 2: but you're also being firm. Step two set the expectation.
Speaker 2: Make it crystal clear. Reliability is a non negotiable. We
Speaker 2: all have to step up when things get tough. That's
Speaker 2: the deal. We need to be able to trust that
Speaker 2: when the team needs you, you'll be there. Right now
Speaker 2: that trust is not there, what are you going to
Speaker 2: do to rebuild it? This puts the responsibility back where
Speaker 2: it belongs on them. Step three write it down. If
Speaker 2: this isn't the first conversation, document it. Patterns need paper trails.
Speaker 2: Protect yourself and your team by making it formal. If
Speaker 2: the behavior doesn't change, a conversation is a start, but
Speaker 2: accountability needs to be written. Step four. Reinforce the standard
Speaker 2: with the team. When without naming names, remind your team
Speaker 2: that every person is counted on to show up when
Speaker 2: things get tough. Let them know you see their hard work.
Speaker 2: Let them know that it's valued. But also make it
Speaker 2: clear every player on this team carries weight. If someone's
Speaker 2: always dodging the load, they're either going to fix it,
Speaker 2: or they're going to find themselves off the team. So
Speaker 2: loyalty is built in the trenches. Trust doesn't come from
Speaker 2: shared coffee breaks. It comes from shared leadership, from stepping
Speaker 2: into the mess together and knowing the person next to
Speaker 2: you won't run when it gets uncomfortable. So here's the
Speaker 2: big takeaway from this episode. You don't have a team
Speaker 2: unless every member of your team knows how to carry
Speaker 2: their endo the rope. And if someone keeps letting go
Speaker 2: of their rope, they're not part of the team. Their aliability.
Speaker 2: Leaders don't just manage schedules, they protect the integrity team.
Speaker 2: So don't look the other way, address it, set the standard,
Speaker 2: and lead with backbone. This has been the seven minute
Speaker 2: Leadership podcast and I thank you for listening.
Speaker 1: For more Paul Fell of Alito Podcasts, visit paulfellowalito dot com.