The way a leader handles correction of someone on the team is important if the desire is to keep quality people on the team. All of us occasionally need someone to help us become better at what we do. That should be the end goal of correction. All of us make mistakes.
Avoiding the corrective procedure keeps the organization from being all it can be. It keeps people from learning from their mistakes. Good leaders use correction to improve people and the organization.
It’s important that we correct correctly.
Here are seven aspects of healthy correction:
1. Relationship.
Corrective actions should start here. It’s hard to correct people effectively if you don’t have a relationship with them.
Using authority without an established relationship may work in a bureaucratic organization but not in a team environment. Relationship building should begin before the need for correction.
2. Respect.
Never condemn the person. As soon as correction becomes more personal than practical, the one being corrected becomes defensive and the leader loses the value of the correction.
Focus attention on the actions being corrected and not the person. (Even if the correction involves a character issue, if you intend to retain the person, you will accomplish more if he or she knows they have your respect.)
3. Reprimand.
Make sure the action being corrected is clear and the person knows what they did wrong. Don’t wait until the problem is too large to restore the person to the team.
Even though protecting the relationship is important, the person doesn’t need to leave still clueless that there is a problem.
