"The beatings will continue until morale improves"

If you google the origin of this quote, it’s unknown. Some say it goes back to the Irish potato famine in the 1840s. It signifies an oppressive situation where punishment is used to improve morale, even when it seems counterintuitive.

How does this apply to leadership? In any organization, it's a challenge to get and keep our teams invested in our customers and goals—to get them to work hard and not just phone it in. This is tough with the day-to-day grind. If employee performance starts to slip, the easy thing to do as a manager is to come down hard. You mess up, you're gone. Done. Get your s**t together or get to stepping. Fear-based leadership can improve results—temporarily (see "fear performance" below). Employees fear losing their jobs, so they adjust. But it doesn't address the underlying issues with their performance. Why aren’t they engaged? Why are they doing the bare minimum? Do they enjoy coming to work? Failing to ask these hard questions will just keep the performance issues going. You can call this “culture” if you want. I call it understanding how your staff feel about what they do every day—and whether they feel valued.

Fear performance doesn't last. Fear performance – A state of anxiety or fear that occurs when someone is required to complete a task. Fear leads to lower task performance and a decline in citizenship behavior. It also increases counterproductive behaviors.

Counterproductive behaviors – These show up in the workplace in a few ways, and none of them are good: lying, covering one's own ass, placing blame.

Before we start stomping on necks, maybe we should ask ourselves a few questions:

• Is there a path for them at the company? Are they aware of it?
• Do they know our values and mission? Do we showcase them as an organization?
• When a new hire walks in, what is their first day like? Do we make them feel excited to be here?
• Does my team know I appreciate them? Do I tell them?
• Does my team know HOW to do their jobs well? Do they have ALL the tools they need to succeed?

Spoiler alert...they might not be the problem.