Welcome back practicing leaders. I was having a conversation with a colleague of mine where they were running into an issue where they were becoming frustrated with one of their employees. Today we're gonna be talking about what do you do as a manager or as a leader when you become frustrated with either a colleague or with an employee.
This is the practicing leader podcast. I'm your host Parul Bhargava and let's discuss.
Have you ever found yourself being frustrated with an employee or with a colleague? It's completely normal to experience this, but it's important to handle it in a constructive manner. We're going to explore some strategies about how you manage your own frustration, as well as how do you help the employee move forward.
Every single person, every single day when they go to work, I try to have the belief that they're coming in to do the best job that they can every single day. No one's trying to do a bad job. The first thing I try to do is take a step back and reflect on what my own feelings are about the situation.
It's crucial to approach the situation with a common objective mindset. This will help you address the issues in a very fair and balanced manner. Because when you think about it, everyone is going through something someday. So just be sure to be able to check yourself and make sure that you're reacting appropriately.
Next, seek to understand the underlying reasons for the employee's behavior or performance that's causing that frustration in you. Is there something that's happening in their personal life? Is there something going on in terms of the manner in which they are delivering? This empathy will allow you to be able to approach the situation more compassionately.
Something to consider is, frustration is the gap between, how do I put this, the expectations you have and the reality that the individual is living. That gap between those two things is what usually causes frustration. Take a moment to reflect and see, are you trying to make them meet the expectations and the manner in which you are delivering something?
Or is it you're asking them to be able to complete something and do it to their best abilities as soon as you kind of give yourself some space to acknowledge that maybe you're trying to get them to fit into a mold of how you do things, you have an opportunity to be able to then coach that individual after you've had that some time to reflect and have a better understanding about what's going on for yourself, schedule some time with the employee and discuss your concerns.
And just go over exactly what you've thought through and be able to describe it to them. Clearly explain the specific behaviors or performance issues that are causing the frustration. You can explain what the impacts are to the team as well as the overall organization. Active listening in this is crucial.
During this conversation, you're going to figure out what exactly is happening for them. As well as making sure when they respond to you, you can actually hear what they're saying, being careful here to not listen to respond, but listen to actually hear what they say as part of this conversation that you're having with the employer with your colleague, make sure that you're offering support and resources to help that person improve, provide guidance, additional training, mentorship, or help them overcome any challenges that may be facing by offering that assistance.
You're doing whatever you can to be able to make them successful. This is where you have an opportunity to help them grow and help them be able to figure out how to deliver on something that maybe you've already learned and experienced. Now, what are you doing to try to help them succeed? Be sure before you leave that meeting, make sure you've set clear expectations during the process.
Make sure you're having a clear conversation. Say, Hey, I want X, Y, Z to be done. And I'd like to be done by this timeframe. Do we agree that this is what we're going to try to do? When you clearly communicate your expectations and provide constructive feedback, you can see how the employee can now meet those expectations.
A lot of times what happens is a lack of clarity of expectations ends up in this misunderstanding or missed expectations. Establish measurable goals and a timeline for the improvement. Like I suggested earlier, what I try to personally do after I have these conversations as I try to also follow up and just make sure that there's no misunderstanding after afterwards, whether it be by sending an email, following up in a, in a chat message, following up in some way to make sure that you can help track progress and address any ongoing concerns or questions that may arise.
This will help ensure that there's clarity and fairness in how you're delivering this message, as well as how you're judging what the progress actually looks like. Remember, you're not in this situation alone. If you're finding that the Individual is not improving or escalates and becomes worse. Don't hesitate to ask for assistance, either from a more experienced manager from someone else in the organization, get the help that you need in order to be able to try to move the ball forward and try to help that person.
Improve the goal is not to try to make the individual not feel welcome or not feel like they are able to succeed. The goal is to try to make sure that everyone can work well together and make sure the frustration is reduced for everyone involved
as a manager as a leader, trying to figure out how do you not exhibit that frustration is a challenge. I experienced every single day. It's something that happens, whether it be working in www. In my day to day work or working with, for example, an insurance company and on something or working with somebody else, those things arise.
And this is where you can try to apply these methodologies to any walk of life or any type of thing that you want to have be there clarity. So that way there can be less frustration for everyone involved. Being a being able to show up as your best self requires you to be able to manage that frustration and be able to show up in a way that is being supportive and helping others grow.
This means you have to be objective. This means you have to still help, even though you may be getting frustrated. You still need to show up in a way that is being the practicing leader. I know you could be and making sure you're taking the time to do that. It's hard. It can be very frustrating for yours for yourself individually.
This is where it's best in the long term that you find a way to try to manage that internal frustration and show up in a way that's extremely professional. It's going to show up in a way that is hard to ignore. That's all for today's video about handling frustration with an employee or with a colleague.
And I'm hoping that these strategies will be helpful to you.
