Leading With Heart

Leading With Heart

My leadership blog for this month is titled “Leading with heart without breaking one”.

We are hearing a lot more about ‘leading with heart’. In celebration of heart healthy February, this blog is about a topic I hear too often.

When an employee approached me about needing to see me, her concerns had been building for several months. This individual has worked very hard on her job while pursuing professional certifications as required in her industry.

Her manager is known for supporting the staff with their professional goals and the development needed to achieve those goals. The employee felt comfortable sharing her goals with her manager. The manager provided real life experience to complete class projects and gave valuable feedback.

With the support of her manager the employee believed she was well on her way to achieving her goals. On the surface everything seemed to be falling into place.

However, I soon learned, there were 3 areas where the employee’s plans fell apart. This blog focuses on the first two.

First, the organization was going through a lot of change. Further, the manager knew her superiors were not planning on creating lower level manager positions in the organization.

Yet, in order to support the employee and keep her engaged, the manager made two promises. The first was a promise of more money upon receiving her certification. The second was a change in title to a manager level role. Unfortunately, the manager did not have the authority to make either of these promises.

Before making promises to your valuable staff when you know you will not able to keep those promises, contact Stacey Etherson owner of HR Solutions for Small Business, LLC. I will help you have those difficult conversations so it’s a win-win for both you and the employee.

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