Case Study: Accountability

Imagine this, you have a member of staff who is beginning to inaccurately report his arrival time on his timesheet. This is a member of staff who is beloved and diligent, but has begun to slip in his honesty.

What would you do? Would you call him into your office and berate him for an hour? Would you question his character and integrity? Would you fire him on the spot? Let me tell you what we did, because yes, this is a real situation.

We called a meeting with this particular member of staff and said: "My dear, we are calling this meeting because we are noticing some discrepancy between your arrival time and the time reported on your timesheet. If there is a delay (traffic, emergency, sickness, etc.) no problem - those unavoidable circumstances are not held against you. Help us understand what's going on."

As the tone was curious and understanding vs accusatory, the member of staff in question immediately replied apologetically with: "You are so right, and I apologize for not being honest. While there is traffic in the morning, I will work on waking up earlier so that this will not happen again."

To which we replied with: "Thank you for your honesty. So that we can continue to operate within the realm of trust, please be sure that this does not happen again. If there is a delay, we are happy to accommodate you, as long as there is communication. We value your presence within our community tremendously."

The manner in which this conversation took place was not by happenstance, and was not performative. Through months of engaging with our staff with intentional care - celebrating birthdays, spending quality time together outside of the office, accommodating schedules, valuing and implementing the opinions of our staff, generous income sharing, etc. - we were able to speak heart to heart and resolve the concern at hand.

As leaders, our posture, tone, and disposition with our staff members can convey many things, from contempt and disappointment all the way to compassion and care. One laps in judgement does not erase a consistent habit pattern of diligence. Nevertheless, when corrective conversations need to take place, they can thrive if the soil has been fertilized with clarity and kindness.