Now I don’t mean play barbie with them or go in the back garden to kick a football around or even wrestle with them in the main office, that’s a little weird!

I mean good parenting is all about showing them right from wrong, leading by example, being the best parent you can be, having fun without damaging reputation and having consequences for action or inaction.

That’s the way you should manage or lead your TEAM.

A huge mistake I see most agency owners make is when staff do something wrong or don’t do what they have been asked and owners don’t want to have those difficult conversations with them. It gets worse and worse and the thought of having the conversation just gets scarier, so it never happens.

Before you know it, the culture is rotten, staff don’t respect the leadership, if they tell you or not, and the business has real problems. You wouldn’t allow your children to behave like that, so why your staff?

If your daughter/son started using bad language all over the place, I’m sure you would tell them off. If they had chocolate covered hands and were about to put them on your nice new wallpaper, would you say, “don’t do that”? Then when they do, it goes “Oh ok, NEXT time don’t do that”. No, of course you wouldn’t. They would get checked (or we would send them down the pit again).

So why do we allow staff to get away with it?

It’s the fear of the problems of having staff leave that stops many agency owners from doing what we all know should happen.

Just think, what would I do if my child behaved that way?

You’re not doing yourself or the business any favours by glossing over things or pretending it didn’t happen.

What are your thoughts?