Spooky Season!

Out of many informal interviews I’ve conducted over the years, this one was my favorite, by far. Perhaps it was how the young officer depicted his work environment. “My Boss and Beetlejuice have much in common!” “How’s that?,” I asked. “You never know who or what you’re going to get from one minute to the next. Going to work is like walking into your bedroom knowing there’s a monster in the closet, under the bed, inside the mirror, or behind the chair and you find yourself frozen inside, just waiting for some kind of calamity to unfold. Walking through the office door is like walking into the nightmare you tried to wake up from in your dreams, only this is not a dream, but a reality, every day." “So tell me how you really feel,” I asked, and we laughed. Talk about a spooky leader!

How sad it is that people feel burdened before walking through the workplace door. Not burdened because they just don’t feel like going to work, but burdened because the workplace is a nightmare of inconsistency. Perhaps this is a big reason why people would rather telework than come to work.  It is my opinion that the most burdensome workplace environment is where an inconsistent leader resides. 

Inconsistency is to a leader what cancer is to the body. If left unchecked, it will kill a leader’s ability to lead. In many of my conversations, people told me that they would “rather work for a consistent menace than an inconsistent one; as bad as they are, at least they are consistently bad!” In other words, you know what you are getting when you come to work.

Don’t be a spooky leader, be a solid leader. A leader who is clear in course, consistent in character, calm in crisis, and capable of trust consistently.