Why You Should Stop Calling Your Employees Your Family

Short episodes like this one are designed to really give you something to think about. And today, I want to drop a little leadership nugget on you. Do you think of your employees as like your family? In this episode, I reveal a couple of reasons why you should pump the brakes on that and think again.

3:24 - My reaction when I hear people refer to their staff as family

4:22 - One example of how your words can have unintended consequences

5:36 - The second reason why you don’t want to call your employees your family

7:11 - Something my very first mentor told me that has served me well ever since

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Transcript for Why You Should Stop Calling Your Employees Your Family

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, permanent makeup studios, cannabis businesses, movement studios, sex toy shops, and other industries that are too often left out of the leadership conversation. If you’re looking for a woo meets strategy approach to defining your strengths and values, designing a business that supports you, and creating a soul-driven, and of course, pleasurable plan for profitability, then let’s get started.

Hey boss, the moment you've been waiting for, I am opening the waitlist to my Unshakable Sales Confidence Program. It's time for you to learn how to advocate for your work so you can get paid what you deserve. Look, I'm going to help you to dismantle any misconceptions and dismantle any nasty narratives that you have around selling.

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You can get more info. The link will be in the show notes but it's beunshakeable.co. All right, my loves, let's jump into today's episode and I will talk to you soon.

Hey, y'all. It’s Leslie, your embodied sales and leadership coach. How you doing? How you doing? I'm doing great. Thank you for asking. Today I want to drop a little leadership nugget. I'm going to be doing these little short episodes that are really just giving you something to think about.

One thing to think about when you think about these leadership nuggets, when I just drop a thought, these are my thoughts. I never come to platforms looking for agreement. Turn to your neighbor and say, “She's not looking for agreement.” I'm not trying to build cult members and clones. I just want to give you a different perspective, something to consider.

Today, I want to talk about hey, let's stop, as small business owners, calling our staff our family. When I hear people calling their staff members and say things like, “Oh, we're such a family, we're so close knit, we're a family,” even putting that in their job description, it makes me want to throw up.

Why? Because it's already difficult as small business owners of non-traditional businesses, like pole studios, tattoo shops, they already feel like there's this error of “This ain’t a real business.” Hit me back and tell me if you've ever gotten the feeling that some of your employees already think that this is just a hobby. It's something fun to do in a way to serve a community, but it's not a real business, even though your business makes $500,000 to $1 million a year. It's a real business that's paying them every week.

But the energy behind it is already like “This is fun and this ain’t serious work”. When we start calling them our family members, the first thing I always think about is words have power. Words have meaning, whether you consciously know it is being subconsciously received. When you use language like we're a family, for some people, you do know that people come from dysfunctional, weird family situations.

Let me tell you something. The way that Little Johnny stands in the supermarket and cuss his mama out, I wish Little Johnny would now be working for me and stand on my studio floor and cuss me out. That's how you treat your mama. I'm not your mama. I'm your boss, Johnny. I will fire your ass.

I know you think I'm just being funny, but I'm serious. Some people have learned very early on not to respect authority. When they don't respect authority, hey, that becomes an issue in your space. That's the number one reason. You don't know people's family context, the drama that that might set up for them, and the behavior that they might think it's acceptable, because that's what they do with their mama.

The second thing is that when you get really close in relationships with people, with your family with your friends, concessions are often expected. If it was my sister coming to me and I knew that my sister was having some situations at home where she needed a break, I would give her that time off because it's my sister. But also know that I fired my sister too. That’s a story for another day.

I will give some concessions but at the end of the day, if I fire my old sister, you know I'll fire you. Let's just keep it real. But there are these concessions that people expect for you to make because we're a family. When you're sitting there and you're like, “Okay, you need more time off, you need to be able to come in late,” and now it's impeding on your business.

The way that you would handle your family member is not how you're going to handle your employee. But when you speak that family narrative, and you give people that impression, and especially immature people, can we just be honest? But immature employees, they will respond in a way that will put you in a precarious situation, that you should have never been in if you have clear boundaries between you being their employer and them being your employee. They're not your family.

Let me share a story. You guys have heard me talk about Fred [Getts]. He was my very first mentor. He taught me how to sell. I love that man. I will love him for the rest of my life. Now, one of the things is that Fred and I were really close. But what he said to me, I'll never forget. He said, “I love you, kid. I think you're sharp. I think you're smart. I think you're going to go places. But you know what? I will never be your friend. I might have to fire you one day. You always need to remember that no matter how nice and cuddly a lion is, a lion is still a lion.”

I filed that away and it served me well in managing team members. It doesn't mean that you can't have deep love and care for your staff. My staff knows that I love them. I pray for my staff and they know that. I'm concerned about what's going on in their lives. But I am always still in a position of leadership. I am always still holding to boundaries that respect them and myself.

I don't talk to my staff like they're my children. Because we're not a family and they're not my kids. I try to foster an environment of mutual respect, an environment that shows them that this is a real business and I'm going to treat it as such and I expect you to do the same. If you've been using those words, “We're family. We're like friends here,” and I know it's hard because we work together in a very small environment, you often know more about your employees than what you would in a traditional Fortune 500 company with thousands of employees, I'm not saying this is easy, but I am saying you need to be intentional. It will save both you and them a bunch of heartache.

All right, my loves. Remember, a lion is still a lion. Maintain your boundaries. It’s in service to you and to your employees. Until next time. You know the deal. Grace and peace.

Thank you for listening to today's episode. I just want to remind you that I've opened the waitlist for my Unshakable Sales Confidence Program. Head on over to beunshakeable.co. But if you know that you need some support around selling, specifically around mustering up the confidence to go after the money you deserve, this program is going to be for you. Jump on the list now. People who get on the list early will get access to special pricing and bonuses when I open the doors. Head on over to beunshakeable.co and I will see you next week. Grace and peace.