What’s a Leader to do to Create a Fantastic Work Environment?

Part 3: Maintain High Expectations

Below is an excerpt from an interview with Deb Boelkes by Tyler Gallagher, CEO and Founder of Regal Assets, featured in Authority Magazine  This is the third installment in a 5-part series.

What is the next thing that managers and executives should be doing to improve their company work culture?

It’s crucial for managers to pay attention when individual performance is not up to par. Your best performers can quickly become demotivated when those around them are allowed to slack off or—worse yet—when underperformers are promoted merely to get them out of the department. Nothing will demoralize an otherwise highly-motivated team faster than promoting an underperformer.

I always made a point to develop close, trusting relationships with each of my team members. I made sure to put each one of them on paths that would enable them to achieve their personal visions of success and I could hold them accountable for high levels of performance.

Because of this, I rarely had to put underperforming team members on a Performance Improvement Plan, but I never hesitated to do so when necessary. I learned early on, with a chronically unhappy or incapable employee, or an obvious cultural misfit, doing so was always the right thing to do, and in the end, ALL the team members thanked me, even the underperformer. The underperformer either got their act together, or they moved on to something more in line with their passions and desires, which was typically the underlying issue.

As a result, my teams virtually always exceeded our objectives and we had superior camaraderie. We never lacked for great candidates to fill openings because the best people wanted to work in our WOW organization and we were able to keep a steady stream of pre-interviewed high potential superstars waiting in the wings. It is impressive how high performance begets more high performers. Set and keep expectations high.