Discipline With Dignity: Leading Through One of the Hardest Conversations

Speaker A: Welcome to Leading Under Pressure, the podcast where we explore what leadership looks like when the stakes are, um, the highest. My name is Carmel Brown. I am founder and behavioral strategist with Novanti Consulting. As a licensed therapist, a consultant, and a crisis response professional, I have spent more than two decades helping individuals, leaders, and organizations navigate some of their most difficult and challenging moments. What I have learned over these years is leadership is not defined during those seasons of comfort when everything is going well. It's revealed during moments of pressure. Each episode of Leading Under Pressure, we will explore the psychology of leadership, organizational behavior, workplace culture, and the human side of decision making. Because the way the leaders respond under pressure shapes not only the outcomes, but the people and the cultures that they lead. Thank you for joining me. So let's get started. Now, I first want to mention that some conversations that we have to have, some of those difficult conversations that we must have in the workplace and in those environments in which we lead, change a person's career, their overall trajectory of their career. Other conversations change the way that those employees see themselves, changes their overall identity. Today, we're talking about one of the most difficult responsibilities a leader will ever face in their career, disciplining or terminating an employee. Organizations invest a great deal of time and teaching their leaders how to document performance. You know, those performance evaluations and how to document their concerns, how to follow policy and reduce legal risk. And those things are very important. They matter. But we spend far less time as organizations teaching our leaders how to preserve another person's dignity while holding them accountable for their performance and their behavior and their choices. I have sat with employees who could still remember, years later the exact words the supervisor used when they were disciplined or when they were terminated or laid off. Not because they remembered every policy that was discussed, but because they remembered how they were treated. I think it was the late Maya Angelou who said, people may not always remember everything you've said or done, but they will remember how you made them feel. This is important as it relates to leadership roles. I've also worked with leaders who carry the emotional weight of, uh, terminating an employee long after the meeting was over. I myself experienced that from over 20 years ago, having to terminate an employee. Um, it was very tough because I really liked the person, but it was someone that, uh, I had to terminate for a variety of reasons. But leaders tend to carry that emotional load after having to make such decisions. Very often we question whether or not we handled it well, whether or not we could have done more to help the employee to improve performance. Prior to making that decision, and also whether or not we have unintentionally caused any unnecessary harm and in that process. So today's conversation is not about avoiding, uh, accountability. It's about understanding that accountability and dignity are not competing values. Great leaders understand that both can exist in the same conversation. So today's episode is called Discipline with dignity. I have personally spent years sitting with people after one of the worst days of their professional lives. I've listened to people describe disciplinary meetings and terminations that happened five, 10, even 20 years earlier. What's remarkable isn't that they remember being disciplined. They often remember exactly how they were treated. Very often, leaders think they are, uh, managing performance. Employees often experience a threat to their identity during this process of discipline. Every disciplinary conversation creates two outcomes. Outcome number one is the organizational outcome, and outcome two is, is the human outcome. So let's first talk about the organizational outcome. The organizational outcome is. This is where you answer. Was accountability addressed? Was policy followed? Was performance corrected? Okay, and then outcome number two, the human outcome. Did the employee leave feeling respected regardless of whether or not they were terminated or whether or not they had written or verbal, um, discipline? Did they feel humiliated in that process? Did they lose trust? Did they lose hope? And did they leave believing that they had value as a human being beyond the mistake that they made that resulted in the discipline? And great leaders care about both of those outcomes, not just one. Poor leaders only care about the first outcome, the organizational outcome. Uh, so why are we having this conversation? Because I want to help leaders navigate the moments that define culture within their organizations. That is the main reason we're having this conversation today. A person's dignity should never become, um, collateral damage in the pursuit of accountability. Uh, most leadership books and podcasts usually focus on things like how to discipline someone. I want to focus on what discipline feels like from a human perspective. Leaders often conduct disciplinary conversations under significant pressure themselves. And I want to mention that behavior is often the last thing to change. Poor performance is usually the visible symptom of, uh, a deeper issue or process. Even when accountability is necessary, understanding that process leads to better leadership. So what are your processes that you have in place? And then trauma? Informed leadership. You can acknowledge that many employees carry unseen histories of things like rejection, failure, adversity, without suggesting leaders excuse poor performance. So that's a really big one, guys. Many employees carry things that we don't see things like rejection in, um, their past adversity and failure. And they're not necessarily showing up and expecting us to excuse their performance. Okay. And then psychological safety is critical. You guys hear me talk about it all the time. And this is how organizations handle discipline. It sends a powerful message not just to the individual that's been disciplined, but to everyone else who's watching those that remain within your organization. Executive behavioral risk. We've got to talk about that. Because a leader's behavior during those difficult conversations becomes a defining moment for organization culture and trust. Whether we wanted to or not. The leadership skill, discipline with dignity is something that you don't hear organizations teaching or coaching on very often. And as I stated earlier, an employee's dignity should never become collateral damage in the pursuit of, ah, holding them, um, accountable for performance issues or behavioral issues or misconduct. We spent a great deal of time teaching leaders within companies how to document performance problems. Follow progressive discipline. That's verbal discipline, written discipline leading up to termination. For most organizations, we spend a great deal of time teaching our, um, leaders that are responsible for hiring and firing those things. And we teach them how to reduce legal risk for the company. But we spend very little time teaching them how to preserve another human being's dignity while doing one of the hardest parts of being a leader. Discipline should never become humiliation and accountability should never require the loss of dignity. So, so let's talk about the hidden emotional weight of leadership. Because most leaders. Now I know this does not mean all leaders, but most leaders don't enjoy discipline disciplining their employees. Very often leaders experience things like guilt, self doubt, anxiety, uh, anticipatory stress they're anticipating sometimes not even sleeping well the night before, knowing that they have to have this conversation with an employee. Um, fear of conflict, fear of lawsuits, uh, fear of emotional reactions from the employee that's been disciplined or others within the organization. And also questioning whether or not they are a good person or making a good decision as a, ah, human being. Not just as the CEO, the HR professional, the manager, supervisor, or whatever the role or title is, but as a human being. And many leaders dread those conversations for days and sometimes even weeks because they're human too. The emotional impact on the employees. We've just briefly gone over the emotional impact for the employees, the person in the leadership role that's having to carry out this disciplinary action that we're referring to. We also must address the emotional impact on the employee. And I'm, um, saying this from a therapist perspective because I've worked with many professionals, many high performing, committed professionals who have been disciplined or terminated from their job or their career in therapy. Being disciplined can threaten a person's overall Identity, as I stated earlier, uh, the extent to which they feel competent, their sense of security and safety, their financial stability is impacted, their interpersonal and professional relationships are impacted by such decisions, their self esteem, and then their overall hope for their future. Uh, and that can be their hope for their future in their career and in their personal lives. And for some employees, this interaction can also activate things like childhood shame and abandonment from previous or earlier years in their lives and any failure narratives that they may have from the past and things like rejection. And unfortunately, leaders rarely see this invisible psychological process that's happening underneath the surface. Because after all, as ah, leaders you have a job to do. And I think most people understand that and respect that. But we also need to understand what's happening on the other side of the table. So let's talk a little bit about uh, the fact that discipline isn't just about behavior. One of your strongest insights as a leader is understanding that employees don't always remember every single word. They remember how you made them feel. Did they feel disposable? Did they feel respected? Did they feel embarrassed, attacked? Did they feel heard? Did they feel dehumanized in that process, in that exchange? That's what stays with them after that disciplinary action occurs. It's not the fact that you have to discipline them, it's how you discipline them that results in whether or not they feel dehumanized. And I want to talk real quick about six principles of discipline with dignity. Because it is important that as leaders we all understand that discipline can leave a person with their personal dignity. So let's first talk about, uh, protecting their privacy. Never embarrass a person publicly, correct them privately whenever you can. And remember that dignity does begin with privacy. That is a very basic concept that I want you to grasp in this. That dignity comes with privacy, not public humiliation. And the second thing I want to mention is being able to separate the human being, the person, from their performance or from their mistakes. Separate the person from the performance instead of maybe telling them that you've noticed that they are lazy and they're inconclusive and inadequate, saying things like the expectations haven't been consistently met because their behavior is not their identity. And that's not the message that you want to send to your employees as uh, you are engaging in disciplinary action. And the next thing I want to mention is be clear, be clear without being cruel. Specifically, kindness does not require ambiguity. Compassion does not require avoiding accountability. Leaders often confuse empathy with avoiding difficult conversations. So keep those things in mind. And then next I Want to briefly talk about, uh, the importance of allowing the employee to maintain or keep their voice. And this is simply done by asking questions. Help me understand what you've been experiencing even with the outcome that you are anticipating, meaning the outcome's not going to change. Maybe they're going to be terminated or suspended regardless, but you're still asking them and giving them permission to verbalize their experience in the, the whole process. Uh, allowing them to speak preserves agency feeling. Heard matters, guys. Don't take their performance issues and mistakes personal. Don't make the person offend their value or their worth. And this is huge. The goal isn't to win. Nobody wins when someone's terminated. The goal is understanding, clarity. And you want to avoid things during this exchange of disciplinary action. You want to avoid things like personal character attacks. And this is why I said don't take personal. You want to avoid things like sarcasm and kind of piling on things, bringing up unrelated mistakes maybe they made months or even years ago or even weeks ago. You want to avoid making examples out of people. I've seen that very often in organizations, this person needs to be terminated because it is a message that's being sent to the rest of the employees or the organization. Don't use a person that's maybe an easy scapegoat as an example. Next, I want to mention the importance of leaving the employees with their humanity. Don't dehumanize them. And this may become something that you, uh, continue to encourage throughout your organization on an ongoing basis. Because an employee may lose a position, they should never lose their humanity. Never. And keep this in mind if termination is necessary, which unfortunately, sometimes it is. Talk about the reality of the circumstances. Termination is sometimes, like I said, necessary, very appropriate. It's fair, it's protective of the organization. And sometimes termination is simply responsible. It's a responsible thing to do because you are very often removing risk from the organization and the rest of the employees that you have. However, necessary doesn't mean careless. Great leaders recognize that this may be another Tuesday or Wednesday for the organization or for the person that is delivering the disciplinary action. But it may be a defining moment or a defining day for the individual that's being terminated's life. So think about that perspective as you are making these decisions. Something I want you to consider. Your former employees will tell this story for years, throughout their life. And the question is, what story will they tell? Will it be, they treated me like garbage? They treated me like I was disposable or it was painful, but they treated me with respect. And that story impacts the employer's brand, company morale, trust among, um, the employees that are remaining, your professional reputation within your organization and within your community, and a sense of psychological, uh, safety within the culture of the company that you are running or managing. This is a really important statement that I want you to consider, maybe even consider writing it down. Leadership is tested less by how you celebrate success with your employees and team members than by how you handle someone's worst day. I'm going to repeat that. Leadership is tested less by how you celebrate success within your organization than by how you handle someone's worst day. So take that into consideration as you move forward. And so, as I get ready to wrap up here soon, I want to challenge you with something. I want to leave you with something reflective in nature. Every leader eventually has to have a difficult conversation that they wish they didn't have to have with an employee. When that day comes, I, uh, want you to remember this. You cannot always protect someone's position or role or title within the company, but you can always protect their dignity. Before you end any disciplinary meeting, leaders should always be able to answer the following questions. If this conversation were recorded and played for the remaining members on my team and my superiors within the organization, would I be proud of how I treated this person? Did I correct the behavior without attacking the person? And did I preserve that individual's humanity? Did I allow them to leave with self respect? Would I want someone that I love to be treated this way at work, even on their worst day when they're learning that they're no longer employed? These questions I want you to consider talking to leaders within your organization about, because this goes beyond compliance and more into leadership ethics, which is something we don't always talk about. For counselors, which I'm used to being around, we talk a lot about the ACA ethics. For psychologists, which I'm also around a lot, they talk about APA ethics. And for social workers, it's, um, NASW ethics and such. I'm talking about leadership ethics. Today. People rarely recover from humiliation as quickly as organizations recover from poor performance. I think that's worth sitting with. Performance issues can often be corrected within weeks or months. Humiliation can shape someone's confidence, trust and leadership and willingness to take risks for years to come. Leadership is the stewardship of human dignity under conditions of accountability. Uh, and that's not just about discipline. It applies to many other things within the workplace, like layoffs, restructuring, performance reviews, corrective coaching, uh, denied promotions, uh, organizational change, crises, conflict, succession planning, strategic planning, all those things. Helping the leaders within your organization to navigate those moments will define the overall culture of, uh, your organization. The culture of your organization, I want you to remember, is the operating system of your business, of your company. It sets the tone for just about everything. Performance included the science of human behavior during high stakes leadership moments. That's what we're talking about here today. So before we close, or as we close, I'd like to leave you with a thought or two. Every leader eventually will have a conversation that they hoped they wouldn't have to have. That could be a difficult coaching conversation, a final written warning, a performance improvement discussion or termination meeting. Those moments become defining moments not only for the employee, but for the leader and for the company as well. You may not always be able to protect, as I stated earlier, someone's position, but you can always protect their dignity. People rarely remember every policy that was followed by. They do remember whether or not they were treated with fairness, with respect, and with humanity. Leadership is never only measured by the decisions that we make in our roles. Leadership is measured by how we make those decisions and how we deliver them. Thank you so much for spending time with me today. If today's conversation challenged your thinking on this particular topic, I hope you'll share this episode with another ah, leader who may understand the responsibility of, uh, leading people. Well, until next time, remember this. My name is Carmel Brown and this has been another episode of, uh, our uh, podcast, Leading Under Pressure. Pressure does not create leadership. It reveals leadership. Dignity defines it. I'll see you on our next episode. Thank you.