The choice is yours

If you're a manager/supervisor/whatever you'll regularly have encounters with those who's work you oversee. In each of those encounters you can encourage, inspire or challenge (in a positive way), or you can do the opposite.



It's very much your choice.

There are those who naturally encourage and bring out the best in others; born leaders who, even when giving you a telling off, will leave wanting to do better, to impress. The rest of us have to learn.

It's in the review, the telling off, the disciplining of staff that this is the most important.

If something hasn't been done well, hasn't been done at all, or there's an issue of personal conduct that needs to be tackled, this probably isn't going to be an easy conversation. It shouldn't be. I've encountered too many managers who deal with this conflict by embracing the confrontation.

There's certainly a time and a place for a no nonsense, straight to the point, tell it like it is approach. But imho the place for that is either when there's already a healthy working relationship, or nothing else has worked.

It's particularly a problem for people who don't like conflict. I'll come clean and admit that I don't. That informs my management style, and I'm quite sure has led to me not tackling things as strongly as they needed to be. However, I think that's far less damaging than going all guns blazing when it isn't required (which is very rarely).

The classic management advice is to give a turd sandwich. Open with something positive, deliver the negative, round off with another plus. It's simple and it works, but too many managers fail to do this, or end up delivering 'positives' that are really not all that positive.

Ultimately consider two things: 1, your goal is to get things done better. If the interaction ends with the staff member understanding things are not as they could be, but you value them and trust they are capable, that's going to be much better than giving them another dressing down and leaving them demoralised.  2, to lead/manage is to serve. Just as you are serving those to whom you're accountable, you are equally (if not more so) serving those you manage. The job of any manager is to ensure people have what they need to do their work. Feeling valued, trusted and empowered is part of that.