It’s time to kick some butt… NOT!

How often have you heard a fellow leader say something like: “I have had enough! I am gonna kick some butt this time!”

This mindset is in direct conflict with one of the most important principles of leadership. In leading people, we always need to keep in mind the balance between building our relationships with the people we lead and ensuring top performance from them. “Kicking butt” or bluntly trying to impose our will might be a way to make a quick short-term gain and get some work done or some rules followed for a while, but it comes at the expense of the employee’s long-term productivity and interest. Each time we get too authoritarian – forcing someone to act with their hands and ignoring their heart – we take the relationship down another notch. We are ensuring they will stop caring about their work with us, or just quit and stop working with us permanently.

The principle is to treat your employees exactly as you need them to treat your best customers. Ultimately our staff may stick around for the paycheque, but when it comes to putting their hearts and minds into the work – that part is voluntary.

It is never time to kick some butt.

IBEX Payroll extends our profound respect and immeasurable gratitude to all the ancestors and keepers of the land on whose traditional territories our work takes place. We acknowledge that we are on Treaty 1 territory, the traditional gathering place of the Anishinaabe, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota and Dene people and the traditional homeland of the Métis people. This land is sacred, historical, and significant.

Every time we acknowledge this truth, we have an invitation and an opportunity to reflect on the wrongs of the past, what we do in the present, and what we can do to continually honour the people whose lands and water we benefit from today.

This statement only acts as a first step in honouring the land we reside on and its peoples, and must be paired with education, understanding and informed action.