It’s Gonna Get Worse Before It Gets Better!
Welcome back to Pleasurable Profits, where you and I, journey together, exploring the trials, the tribulations, and the sweet victories of running a thriving business. Now, today's episode, oh, it's called "It's gonna get worse before it gets better," and we're going to wade into waters that many of you know all too well.
We're talking about those challenging moments with employees who just don't show respect and understanding of leadership, finding that balance. Yes, I'll share my own stories, honey, and we'll dive deep into a conversation that'll shine a light on why it's vital to set those boundaries and make those hard choices, all for the sake of our beautiful team.
So come on, get comfortable. Join us as we navigate through these sometimes turbulent, but always enlightening waters of workplace dynamics. Together, we'll uncover why it may, indeed, have to get a bit worse before it blossoms into something better. Oh, I feel it, we're about to dive in, and I can't wait for you to join me! Let's do this!
00:05:07 Customer service jobs lost, managers kept.
00:09:41 Employees are bullies, abusing their bosses.
00:11:39 Remove cancerous team members and start fresh.
00:14:04 It gets better, trust me. Love and peace.
Find me on Instagram or LinkedIn or email me at hello@lesliedlyons.com.
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Transcript “It’s Gonna Get Worse Before It Gets Better”
Hey, boss. I am Leslie Lyons, your embodied leadership and sales coach, and this is Pleasurable Profits. This podcast is ideal for owners and leaders of tattoo shops, cannabis businesses, movement studios, sex toy shops, and other industries too often left out of the leadership conversation. If you're looking for no BS approach to defining your strengths and values, designing a business that supports you, and creating a soul driven and, of course, a pleasurable plan for profitability, then let's get started. Hey, party people. It's Leslie. Hope you're doing well. I'm doing amazing.
Now look, you might hear some background noise because I am recording this at night and I've got my bedroom window open. Well, not my bedroom, my office window. It's a spare bedroom that we turn into an office, right? So you might hear some crickets or some frogs and all of that. Just take that as ambiance. Okay, well, as we enter into tonight's episode, I was thinking about what I wanted to title it, and I was like, did I want to call this Leadership Abuse? But I decided I was going to title it. It's going to get worse before it get better. Now, for those of you who don't know, I used to be in corporate HR for quite a few years and I was working for this entrepreneurial tech company. And one of the things that we went through was a downsizing and we hired this consultant to help us come in, and his role was to save the company money by moving all of our customer service functions to South Dakota.
And this guy was a piece of work. When I tell you he was a piece of work, y'all, he would do things like call in from the beach, but say that he was on his way into the office because he knew that his name would strike terror among some of the mid level managers, okay? He was like, you ever seen Lion King, girl? And they like, Say his name again. The hyenas are like, say his name. Say his name, Mufasa. Say it again. Say it again. And you know, the hyenas went crazy. They were just cracking up, right? That's what he was like.
So he liked doing stuff like that. And so one of the things that I didn't like about him because a lot of the people he was laying off were departments that I supported, meaning that I handled the recruiting and the employee relations for. So I had a relationship with a lot of those managers and employees. The managers I was helping them find talent and the employees I had hired. So some of these folks he was laying off, I had hired, and they were great people. So needless to say, I had a chip on my shoulder with this guy. He was a jerk and it was impacting my department. I really didn't like him.
And so I would keep my word short and few with him, like he'd ask questions, I'd give him one word answers, maybe a couple of sentences here or there. It was very obvious that I didn't like him. I never been one to be able to pretend that I like folks, y'all, if I don't like you, you know it. I've never been one of those people. I just don't suffer fools well. But one day I was walking down the hall on my way to lunch and he pulled me to the side and was like, look, I know you don't like me. And I was like, well, Stevie Wonder could see that. That's what I was thinking.
I didn't say it, but that's surely what I was thinking. I'm like, okay. How can I help? He was like, I just wanted to share something with you. And what he shared with me is what I want to share with you, those leaders who are stepping up in your leadership after not really being a leader before. And we'll talk about why you weren't a leader before kind of a thing. But he said to me, he was like, I'm letting these people go as an act of mercy. I'm like what he was like, because in all my years of doing this, it is truly easier to hire new people than it is to get people to stop doing what they were doing before, to change people's minds. And so the people he was talking about were the managers, because the managers could still manage remotely.
So the customer service people were definitely going to lose their jobs. But the managers did not have to lose their jobs because the ones he was replacing them with were actually still going to be in the Chicago office. They weren't all going to be in South Dakota. But he was like the time it would take to get them on board with the new plan and for the amount of money that our company was paying him, he was like, it's just not the best use of your money. And at that time, even after that conversation, I still thought, what a jerk. I still didn't see it. But fast forward to now and I totally get it now. A lot of times when leaders come to me who haven't been leading well, and a lot of times you're not leading well, not because it's your fault, like you're like him, just a jerk, but it's that you haven't had the responsibility of leading people or leading people wasn't in your plan when you started your business.
A lot of the small business owners I work with, they thought it was just going to be them and maybe one person, and that person probably was going to be a family member type of a thing. They didn't start out planning to run a million dollar business with 15 employees. That was not the plan when they started out. And so they grew out of necessity, not out of intention, so to speak, like it wasn't planned, but they were so good at what you do. You grew. I see you. I know. And as you grew, you were like, okay, either I'm going to die or I'm going to have to turn away business, or I'm going to have to hire people.
And a lot of you chose the latter. Girl I know. I was in the same place when I started my studio. I thought it was just going to be me and my sisters running it forever, but it grew. It outgrew us. And so the demand necessitated that I hired more people, and I wasn't necessarily prepared for that because I didn't think that it was going to ever happen that way. Right? So the first thing that I want to say is when a lot of leaders come to me and are like, okay, I got to level up in my leadership, nine times out of ten, it's because some shit is going on. Okay? That's the first thing.
Things are not right. Like, employees are being disrespectful. They're crouching boundaries. It's just not a fun place for you as the owner to even work anymore. You feel like a prisoner in your own business because you can't seem to wrangle in this motley crew. And I now am at the point where because people are typically coming to me when it's at the end, meaning that people are either leaving voluntarily or they're firing people, and now they're like, oh my gosh, I need to do something. I am now telling people it's going to get worse before it gets better, because the truth of the matter is, if you haven't been leading people, people don't take well to you. Now, stepping into your leadership, there are some people who you've been treating as a friend or treating as a peer for so long that when you change, they resent it.
And that resentment can get really nasty. And this is what made me record this podcast, because I was actually talking to a client who she was just sharing some of the things that got back to her about her staff, and her staff was basically saying they didn't really like how she handled people who quit or who she terminated after they left. And they had all of this negative stuff to say. But the part that they left out, the part that they didn't ask about, is how nasty the employees were to her as a leader. It's so funny because I am reading online and every time I want something to go viral, all I got to do is talk about how leaders are failing. If I talk about how leaders aren't leading and how employees deserve better, I get more likes, more shares than you ever can imagine. But the minute that I start talking about employees taking some accountability and employees thinking that they have the upper hand over their employers, people want to argue with me in the comments. People want to send me messages.
People want to say nasty stuff because employees are bullies these days. And now, of course, I'm not talking about everybody, but a lot of employees are really full of themselves. They're delusional in terms of their skill set, what they should be paid, all of the things. And they think that they can just abuse their boss, telling their boss what they're not going to do, telling their boss nasty stuff about their personality, things that would have never happened 20 years ago. And I'm like, wow, we can always talk about leader abuse, but when are we going to start talking about employee abuse? When are we going to start having the conversation about employees who feel like they're running the asylum right when the inmates think they're running the asylum? And it just don't work that way. And so for me, one of the things that I now tell people is that it's going to get worse before it gets better as you start to step into your leadership. It doesn't matter how kind you are or how direct you might be. This is not a personality thing.
This is about a resentment thing. Not everybody is going to applaud you as you step into your new level. But I'm here to tell you, you got to step anyway. You cannot be a slave to your past. Yeah, you made some mistakes. You take accountability for those mistakes, but you can't let anybody make you a slave to your past. And if those people can't accept where you're going now, then you're going to have to leave them behind, whether they leave voluntarily or you aid them in their transition. Because the longer that they stay around, the more they're going to poison the well.
And if you're trying to bring in a new crew of people, but you still got cancerous team members there, it'll be just a revolving door. Because you'll bring in new people who get your vision, get your values, respect you as a leader, and then they'll get around these other people and they'll start to change before those other people start to change. So you got to just rip the band Aid off sometimes and just end it. Like that crazy consultant said, sometimes it's easier to let people go. It's always easier to let people go than try to change their minds. So what I say to you is this you've got a chance to do this over. You've gotten some leadership skills, you've gotten really clear on your values, you've gotten really clear on where you want to go. And more importantly, you know who you need to be in order to do that.
You're no longer that immature, accidental leader. You are a full fledged CEO and you deserve to be respected. And anybody who is going to disrespect you doesn't deserve a paycheck from you. It will hurt for a while, meaning you're going to have to do some extra work until you can hire new employees in some situations, right? The team might have to step in to cover people. But know this, it's temporary. And the benefit of having a team that is in alignment, a team that is following a vision and on one accord and respects, you far outweighs the extra work that you're going to have to put in. I know this is tough to hear, but trust me, it's so worth it. It's so worth it.
So rip the Band Aid off. If you got people there that you know are talking crap about you and all the things, go ahead and let them go. Aid them in their transition so that you can start to build the business that you deserve. You're no longer that immature leader. You've grown. So let's act like it. All right, my loves, this was a quick one. I hope this encourages you today that you're not alone in this.
A lot of us have been there before, but trust me, it is going to give get better. It might sting now, but it is going to get better. All right, loves, until next time. Y'all be well. I'll talk to you soon. Grace and peace.