Whiners Are Leaders Too

Kris is a retail sales representative in a department store. She has been with the store a long time and has proven herself to be one of the store’s top producers in sales. She has enjoyed her status as one of the top producers but unfortunately her success has made her a little arrogant on the job and this is where the problem begins for her.

 

Kris’s attitude is an air of self-deluded superiority and she harbors negative attitudes towards the store, the company and especially her immediate supervisor. She prattles on to some of the newer staff to ignore what the manager has to say and to just do things her way. She believes that her sales success affords her some kind of freedom and an entitlement to do as she pleases. However, time and again she is hauled into the manager’s office and has her hands slapped for saying negative things about the store and her manager - sometimes blatantly right in front of him.

 

“What are they going to do?” she asks some of the newer hires in the store. “Fire the top producer? They wouldn’t dare.”

 

After a hand-slapping, Kris will emerge from the manager’s office only to chide him again by laughing about getting her hand slapped.

 

There’s no doubt about Kris' arrogance on the job. It’s as though she is blatantly attempting to goad her manager into a showdown. Some of the staff resent her and the “I’m going to do things my way – to hell with the manager” attitude she possesses. It is a very uneasy situation for new hires. The new employees are responsible for working with Kris and maintaining a good working relationship with her and while also attempting to demonstrate their loyalty to the company and the boss – the person who gave them the job to start with. Most of the new staff and other department sales reps find themselves in a push-and-pull relationship between Kris and the boss.

 

You can imagine how difficult it would be to be working with a person who blatantly disrespects the boss. The tension in the air would be thick in this kind of work environment.

 

But as I studied Kris’ “could care less” attitude, the question that I came up with is how can Kris, with conviction, offer any kind of genuine customer service if she harbors feelings of resentment, disrespect and negativity towards her boss and her employer? How can she wave the company flag and be believable and genuine in her dealings with customers? Well she can’t. And she needs to be fired immediately.

 

Attitude Adjustment: I don’t care if the cause of a “cancer” in the workplace is the top producer. Anyone who will not show respect to a boss and to co-workers will not show any sort of respect to anyone – including the customer. Remove the cancer before it spreads to the rest of the staff. The boss, unfortunately, looks like a jellyfish by not doing the right thing and sending her packing as soon as possible. Until Kris is fired, she will continue to negatively infect the rest of the staff. Kris, sadly, is a leader. Leadership isn’t about who is in charge. Anyone who has followers is considered a leader – even if they whine, moan, complain and flaunt the rules on the job. Kris’ leadership abilities are misdirected and are causing pain for her, her manager and her co-workers. The solution is to kick her to the curb as soon as possible and send a message to the staff that disrespect is not tolerated. (I am sure a sigh of relief would collectively be breathed by the staff anyway.) At the same time, the staff will rise to the occasion and pick up where Kris left off and will serve their customers in a manner more befitting them. Unfortunately, sometimes “leaders” can be misdirected and negative. That sort of leadership will kill an organization. The negative leader must be deposed before morale goes into the toilet.