Staff and Family

I realise its an old fashion thing to be, but I really am a bit of a patriarch not in the grandfather beard way but in the way i think and act. This is of course no longer acceptable in the modern world because of all of the negative connotations that come with that these days - especially the repression of women. I am not looking at it from that perspective but rather from the more acceptable thinking about staff and family and what it means to be a leader.

As a manager of staff, I can't help but feel responsible for them, I mean that's my role to take care of them and to help them achieve the best that they can. I know a lot of managers who forget that and get all rapped up in being the best that they can be and damn the staff. Sometimes it means looking at the individual and seeing that they are the proverbial square peg in a round hole. It's far to easy for a manager to reach for the mallet and try and jam that peg into the hole. The only problem is it tends to splinter and doesn't hold very well. A lot of my job has included talking to my staff and really listening to them, it's not something that I am a natural at, but you have to try and hear them or else they break. So here it is my theory of management - a manager exists to allow their staff to achieve the best that can, this can mean moving them to another role, helping them find another job, helping them understand their role, teaming them with people who bring the best out of them or just giving them time off to sort out their home lives. If you do this they will work like dogs for you, go the extra yard and perhaps more importantly grow as people. I realise that this is almost a moment of touchy feely coming from me but it's also true in my experience.

Now if that works for staff why is it so hard to make the same decisions for family, we are blinded by our own arrogance when it comes to family and we have a weakness in decision making that has no simple answer. I mean you try to work it the same way at home and you inevitably fail, emotions just confuse the decision making process I guess.

Seeing Mormons tomorrow - lovely dedicated types - will see what we learn :)