The Day My Boss Locked Me In My Office

Or how not to handle your staff during a crisis

Before my car was stolen one freezing January afternoon, I had quite a lot of respect for one boss I used to work for.  I thought he was a fair minded, well balanced decent bloke.  But I was wrong.

The theft of my car meant that I had to get a lift home, I was extremely upset and of course I had no transport or means of getting to work.

The journey to work the next day took two train journeys plus it was the middle of winter, and minus 3 degrees.  Now for reasons known only to my boss, he chose to wait in his office for my arrival the next morning.

He confronted me in his office and asked me why I was late, and when I gave my reasons he read me the riot act and announced –  “I don’t care what’s going on in your personal life!  Your job is to get here for 8.30 in the morning.  Get yourself another car!” 

Of course I handled it beautifully – I completely lost it and accused him of being totally insensitive and thoughtless.  Then he marched me into my office  and told me to calm down while he went and called the HR Manager to convene a hastily arranged formal “warning”, saying that I was behaving like a ‘fish wife’ by ranting on at him.  Then he locked the door and didn’t come back for an hour!  A rather medieval approach to man management I thought.

I was baffled.  My boss was clearly off his rocker, but little did I realise that this was the beginning of a long campaign to bully me out of my job.  It would be a long and very tense 12 months as he pulled every trick out of the book to ‘engineer’ a reason to get me fired.  It was scarey.

With hindsight of course I have my own views on that, which I won’t share here, suffice it to say that I am surprised he’s still walking around.  And I definitely should have taken legal advice. 

But  my point here is that handling staff could for some managers be unchartered territory.  And in some situations you may find that any demonstration of emotion may be a bit scary and like a rebellion, must be crushed to a pulp immediately; because in some institutions emotion has no part to play in corporate life, as it’s seen as weakness and a threat to the status quo.

But the truth is, we are all human and sometimes “shit happens”.  But how do you handle someone who’s probably not operating at 100% because of one or two things going on in their life,  which could temporarily affect their performance or their attitude? 

Do you right them off and get rid of them asap?  What if you used another approach like coaching them?  Granted they might leave of their own accord because they are clearly in the wrong role; or  you could work on their training, performance and self development and thus turn them into a bit of a star.  The complete win/win.

Of course this may never happen to you, and your staff may never cause you any problems, but just in case they do here are a few guidelines:-

1. If a crisis has loomed in their life, first ask questions and get the facts about the situation
2. Be supportive and don’t make assumptions or judge them prematurely
3. Work at finding a solution by using proper protocols and staff grievance procedures
4. Be careful how you handle potentially sensitive or volatile situations, because  if things take a turn for the worse and your member of staff walks out – this could back fire badly on you later.  I was systematically bullied out of my job and received zero support from the management team.  I should have taken legal advice but chose not to.  If you are not following employment law guidelines or at the very least have taken some advice on HR/Health and Safety policies and procedures you could land in hot water.
5. Treat people with respect.  Handling staff can be really tough, but accept that people do make mistakes or go off the rails occasionally.  Think “the problem is the problem, not the person”
6. Think about providing some coaching or mentoring – so rather than trying to fix a ‘problem’ person – look at ways to enhance their performance and turn them into an asset rather than a liability
7. If a member of staff is experiencing temporary personal difficulties – (i.e. having their car stolen by a maverick ex-partner for instance) just let them go home and get themselves sorted out. 
8.  Trust that they will be thankful for your faith and belief in them and return the favour with loyalty and commitment

Now, unfortunately my boss  lost a golden opportunity to do the decent thing for another human being. 

Which is basically why I went into the coaching business.  At the end of the day performance and bad management is all down to the same thing – behaviour and how you handle the situation.  Think in every interaction with someone else you are always 51% responsible.  It’s a two way street.

I’m knee deep in creating a special report “The Accidental Entrepreneur -  200 things I wish I’d known when I started my business” which contains the results of a short survey of entrepreneurs and the challenges they have face when starting their businesses – which includes handling staff. 

Hear what they have to say when this is published next month.

Warmest regards

Wendy Dashwood-Quick