E575 | How To Lose All-Your Employees

Today, I am talking about the number one leadership mistake which is losing emotional control and becoming unprofessional. It can be tough as a business owner to not have moments where this can easily happen, but you have to stay the course and make sure it never happens.

• Analysis of Challenges Faced by a Fractional CFO in the Software Industry
• Losing Emotional Control in a Professional Setting: A Cautionary Tale
• The Impact of Poor Team Dynamics on A-Players

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Podcast Transcript

Danny: So here's the question. How do physical therapists like us who don't wanna see 30 patients a day, who don't want to work home health and have real student loans create a career and life for ourselves that we've always dreamed about? This is the question, and this podcast is the answer. My name's Danny Matte, and welcome to the PT Entrepreneur Podcast.

What's going on guys? Doc Danny here. We're a PT entrepreneur podcast, and today we are talking about the number one leadership mistake that I see people make, and it's very hard to dig yourself out of this hole if you do this. So the mistake that I see that people make that is it's the kiss of death to an employee typically is.

When you lose your emotional control and become what I would consider unprofessional in a professional environment. And I'll give you a really good example of this from my brother-in-law actually. So my brother-in-law is a was a. Consultant for a big four consulting company doing mergers and acquisitions, a lot of high level finance stuff.

And he got to a point where he just, he's like just didn't wanna travel the amount that he needed to in this big company. So he was gone basically every week. He would leave on, Monday morning. Usually come back Thursday night or Friday morning and and get back on the road again the start of the week.

So he was flying a ton, just living outta hotels. And he started to have a a family and it became really challenging cuz he wasn't able to be around his his wife and kids the way that, that he wanted to. So he left and he took a position as a fractional cfo, a chief financial officer for software companies.

And that's what he does now, and he really likes it because it's very flexible and he gets to work with smaller businesses, and it's a little more nimble in terms of the decision making. He's working directly with the actual founder and not necessarily all the, layers of executive staff at a giant, multi-billion dollar company that he was typically working with.

So he really likes it. But he told me about a interaction that he saw with the founder of his company that he just was like shocked by. And they had a client that they had brought on and the client was. Not super satisfied with the service that, that he had. And a lot of it from my brother-in-law's point of view was basically it was a communication issue in terms of expectations of what this person was getting and what was being delivered as they were onboarding him.

And this can happen for sure. There can be miscommunications of what somebody thinks is happening and what actually is happening. And then, that person get frustrated cause they feel like, Their expectations were not met, especially when they're starting off a relationship with something that, is a fairly, costly month, monthly consulting fee associated with this.

It was as simple as that. But the founder of the company Got really upset and basically started yelling at this client on the Zoom call that they were on the video call that they were on. And and just yelling him about all the things he was wrong about. And when he was done, he just left the meeting.

So my brother-in-law has to finish out the meeting with this client that the founder had just yelled at and he's this is so awkward. He's trying to smooth it over whatever, but it's just an awkward interaction. And then they ended the call and when I talked to him it was funny cuz he was like, dude, I'll never look at this guy the same way.

And I don't feel the same way about this company as I did before that, that in interaction. And what happened was, this, who knows what's going on in this guy's life. He's probably stressed out for a number of other reasons or whatever, but he just, he took it out on this client.

And obviously it's a bad idea, to do and my brother-in-law, he just he's, he feels less secure about that company. He feels less secure about the position that he's in, honestly. He's probably gonna start looking for other opportunities because of that. And it's because of a interaction that someone lost their emotional control within a professional setting.

This happens every, listen we're all. Humans, it's, we're messy. We drag personal stuff into business stuff like it, it happens, but you cannot do that in a professional setting and expect people to see you the same way. People lose their temper and look I've lost my temper plenty of times and I've done so even in situations where I shouldn't have.

In my own company with our own employees. And it's tough sometimes because day in and day out you're working to try to, build this company. And in a service based business in particular, you need to have other people that help you with that, that help fulfill on those services that you are developing and selling and and you can't do it by yourself.

So dealing with humans is tough and sometimes, Communication between two people can really be mismatched like in this situation with a client and what his expectations were. But it can also happen with employees. So one of the biggest mistakes I see is lack of emotional control or losing emotional control, not just with a client.

Cuz that's one thing, and that's the interaction my brother-in-law saw was weird. Like that. It was strange for him to see that and he's you just never would've done that with a client. You gotta just eat it, even if it's your fault. But I do see it happen more with employees, and I would see this a lot in the military.

There's not a lot you can do about it. If somebody wants to yell at you, they're gonna yell at you. Whether. They're right or wrong about it, doesn't really matter. It's actually one of the things I miss the most. You can't yell at somebody in a civilian world like you just, they will leave and probably tell everybody how terrible of an employer you are.

You, you just can't you shouldn't either. It's just a bad idea. But what I think that happens more than anything is people get frustrated. With an employee not doing something that they wanted them to do, and they feel like they've communicated it often and in a number of ways and a very clear way, but yet it's still not being followed through on, and then they.

Lose their emotional control at a meeting or in a feedback session or whatever it might be, and that relationship with that person is basically severed at that point. They're not gonna forget you yelling at them or you even like talking very sternly to them. You don't know who you're talking to sometimes.

Like you can give me direct feedback as a kid who's. Parents yelled at them and I'm fine with it. I've been yelled at a lot in number of settings, whether it's sports, military, family I'm okay with that. But when you look at the average person, that may not be their upbringing. And there's also not a whole lot of positive that comes from yelling at somebody besides you feeling momentarily better about yourself.

And, but then instantly you regret it. So one of the biggest mistakes you have to avoid is not getting so frustrated with your team that you literally lose your cool. And this is something that I see happen over and over again especially with what I would consider junior leaders.

So people that. You may have managed a clinic somewhere else or something like that, but it's very different when it's your own business, when it's, when you're the one that has all the risk, when you're the one that has all the skin in the game versus somebody else, or you're working in a big organization.

E Even when I was in the Army, I got dropped into a clinic where I was managing like 20 people very quickly within a couple months of graduating and, but I'm like running their play. I'm hiring I'm letting people go. In the government system, I'm giving feedback, but it's, I'm running their play.

It's not my business. It's not as, it's not as personal. And when somebody is messing up what you want them to do within your own business, then you know, you have to be able to give them clear, respectful feedback and not not do so in a way that comes off as. Passive aggressive, sarcastic, directly aggressive potentially.

It has to be clear, it has to be something that they can improve and you probably have to do it a lot more than you think. That's one thing that I really just was shocked with was how much I had to communicate what I wanted done with people over and over again within our own business.

Cause I'm like, dude, you're sitting here, you're listening to this, right? Why aren't you just doing it? And it's because it's not as important to them as it is to me. And they got all kinds of other shit going on that they're thinking about. We're in a meeting and we're talking about something and they're thinking about their fantasy football team, or they're thinking about what they have to stop to get, at the grocery store on the way home.

They're thinking about other things in their life. They're not just thinking about your business and all you're thinking about is your business because you own it. That's the difference. You gotta keep that in mind. So the kiss of death, if you want to ruin a relationship with somebody, and not just somebody but everybody else in your team, if you do this in front of everybody, you lose your emotional control and you act like an asshole.

To one of your employees, then you're not gonna, you're not gonna do so great with keeping those people around. And you're also really building a culture that is not a culture people wanna work within. Now, on the flip side of that, You cannot let people undermine you and take advantage of situations that you're in.

These are things that you need to address, but you need to do so in, in a very professional way. You need to give them clear ex expectations and also consequences. If they do not do that, you do need to fire people sometimes. That needs to happen. You can't let, especially if you're trying to build a team of people that are solid, like A players, you cannot build a team of A players if you got a C player that's in the mix, it's very apparent, not just to you.

But to everybody else, and a players will get frustrated with people that are not pulling their weight and then they'll leave and they won't tell you why, but that's probably why is because they feel like the team is not working together and that they are putting out a lot more effort.

And this person is just just being lazy or not following systems. Not doing what they're supposed to help everybody else out. So you definitely have to keep an eye out for that. But you have to do so in a very professional, respectful manner. And it's funny that I even have to bring this up, but it happens over and over again.

And a lot of this comes down to frustrated time, poor, stressed out entrepreneurs, that they've just the last straw and then next thing they're yelling at somebody. They have an exchange and it's, it does, you never look good in this situation, ever. So you might as well just not do it.

So kiss a death, treat your employees bad, give, be disrespectful to them. Lose your emotional control on a client or on a on an employee. And man, they'll never, ever look at you the same way.

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Get signed up for the challenge today. It's totally free. We think this is gonna be a game changer for you and are excited to go through it. Hey, real quick before you go, I just wanna say thank you so much for listening to this podcast, and I would love it if you got involved in the conversation. So this is a one way channel.

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