With leadership, there are lot of ups and downs.  I have found that in the past year, as I’ve worked my way up the ladder in my department from being the low man on the totem pole to being the 1st shift lead and my bosses sounding board, that along with more money, more responsibility, there also comes greater hardship.  Now this isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  By hardship, I simply mean there are things you simply can’t talk about when it comes to the decision making process, especially when those things center around the hiring and firing of employees.

My boss let someone go last week and though that person had a TON of good points about her, the good was far outweighed by the bad and the number of complaints we had about her.  I was a vital part of deciding to let her go and it was difficult to not want to give her some warning.   She’d had numerous warnings, and daily I had to remind her that she wasn’t supposed to do certain things without first talking to me.  But it is still a decision that weights heavily on a person simply because this is a persons life and stability that you’re messing with.  When asked by my manager whether or not he really should get rid of her, I made a list of the pros and cos of keeping her.  Quickly seeing that the cons far outweighed the pros column, I saw that it was the only logical choice for us, no matter how much I may of disliked it.

Leadership comes at a price.  You have to be able to emotionally detach yourself from other people’s lives.  As I’ve journeyed to where I am now, I’ve discovered this and have slowly been pulling myself back from the “friend” role I had with my co-workers and put myself more into that leadership position.  Having that friend role be what established a working relationship with them has been helpful, as it allows for them to realize they can come to me with things, but it also comes at a price for me.  As people move on or are let go from the company, the emotions in me are in turmoil because of being part of that process that says they aren’t needed any longer.

How do you deal with the decision making process and what do you do to make leading people easier?

Related articles

• Ours is not to question why, ours is to demonstrate leadership skills and die! (madcapdownsideup.wordpress.com)
• Leadership – going through the levels [Mike Morrison] (ecademy.com)
• We all play a role in leadership. (corepositive.wordpress.com)
• Dumb Leadership Mistakes Smart Managers Avoid (rightways.wordpress.com)
• 7 Dumb Leadership Mistakes Smart Managers Avoid (startupprofessionals.com)
• Preparing women for leadership! (wisewolftalking.com)
• Falling Into Leadership (coachstationsteve.wordpress.com)
• The Art of Leadership: Converging Multiple Views (leadershipmints.com)
• Key Leadership Seminar: Maximizing Profit through Social Intelligence – What Neuroscience Tells Us (prweb.com)
• Decisive Leadership (christopherscottblog.typepad.com)
• Dr. Angela Bisignano, Leadership and Life Consultant, Author of Beautifully Gifted Unveils New Website (prweb.com)
• Harvard Business: What Women Want in Their Leaders (blogs.hbr.org)
• Crossing Over (tomdesomer.wordpress.com)