Leadership Requires Showing That You Care

Low employee performance or poor attitude may not originate from a problem at work. Often employees bring emotional hardship or distress from their personal lives to work. A few moments of daily chit-chat, or a friendly inquiry about their weekend gives the (hopefully correct) impression that you as the business owner care about them as everyday people, as well employees. Sometimes this can lead to painful conversations that were a lot more than you were interested in knowing, but it gets a bad situation in their home life out in the open. Perhaps what you at first perceived as laziness or lack of discipline is instead the weight of an ailing family member at home or the layoff of a spouse. Many times, you won’t know until you ask.