 Applying discipline to our team members is never fun. Today's tips will make it a little easier though. Welcome back and congratulations on taking one more step towards becoming one of the great leaders of tomorrow. No one likes having to discipline their employees, but as leaders sometimes it's part of our job. Today I've got five tips for you when you do have to employ some discipline to do it fairly and equitably. And stay tuned to the end. I'm going to give you a link to download our free leadership development workbook and that'll help you set your career goals for the next two, five and ten years and build a plan of action to achieve them. I hate having to enforce discipline on my team. I find it really unpleasant. I don't like to do it and I always wonder if I did the right thing afterwards and I'm sure most of you feel the same way. But it's important we have to follow through on enforcing discipline on our team when someone engages in misconduct or bad performance because if we don't we set up a culture where respect and discipline and follow through don't matter. The only thing worse than a leader who doesn't enforce any discipline is one who does it arbitrarily and inconsistently. Now I can't promise you that these five tips today will make disciplining your team members any easier, but I can give you a framework that'll help you apply discipline in a fair and consistent and equitable manner with these five tips. Tip number one is to address the behavior and not the person. We want to focus on the conduct that was engaged in or the performance standard that wasn't met and try not to judge the person as an individual for what they've done or what kind of person they are because of the situation. Now it's hard to separate these two things when we're upset or angry so it's a good idea to take a little time to cool down if it's not an absolutely time critical situation. And there's room for some compassion here. This is where you can take a look at what are the extenuating circumstances that went on in this situation. It doesn't necessarily excuse the behavior or the performance standard that wasn't met, but this may be useful as you're trying to come up with a solution and a recovery plan later on so that this person can move on from this incident and do better in the future. Tip number two is to know the standards in your organization. Consult with HR, your supervisor or manager, or other managers in a similar position to you who may have been through this before to see what policies and programs are in place to deal with this kind of situation. You may be an experienced manager in your organization and dealt with this situation before, but it never hurts to consult with the experts to get the latest and greatest because laws and policies are always changing. So make sure you do this tag up with the people who really know the standards in your organization for how to handle this. You may find out that you have options that you didn't know you have that could create a better outcome for the individual involved and for your team as a whole by consulting with the experts and seeing what they have to say. Tip number three is to research similar cases. So after you've talked to the experts about what the policies are, again go back and talk to other managers and see how they might have applied the policies or other solutions in the cases that they've come forward when this situation has occurred before. When I was in the Air Force and they still have this in the Air Force, on Air Force bases they have what's called the status of discipline meeting and they typically have these quarterly, sometimes monthly, it depends on the base, but this is where all the commanders get together and discuss for certain infractions that have occurred, what the punishments were, what the disciplinary actions were, and how they tried to rehabilitate those individuals and get those individuals on a pass to recovery and move on with their careers after they committed whatever it was they committed. Now this does bring up the idea of does fair always mean equal and that's something you've got to decide for yourself. I can't tell you that but it's an important question to ask. If you've got a top performer who's made a mistake and has always been consistently good performer and you feel is going to come out of this and be better for this, do you give them the same punishment that you might give someone who's been a consistent and chronic problem on your team? Again, I can't answer that for you, some leaders choose fair does mean equal, some leaders choose to do it a different way, but it does bring up the idea of does fair always mean equal and as a leader that's something you need to decide as you administer discipline on your team. Tip number four is be timely when administering discipline, don't drag it out. I know I said to take some time, cool down, do the research, consult with others and that's all important to do and take the time to be deliberate and thorough about that but just because this is going to be a difficult conversation with this team member don't drag it out. We've all been in the position where you've made a mistake and we've been waiting for that other shoe to drop and you don't want to put your team member through any additional emotional or mental stress while you're trying to make this decision or once you've made it by holding off on having the conversation. Your team will notice this if you're not taking this matter and handling this discipline in a timely manner and they'll react accordingly. So it's really important, be compassionate, take the time you need to go research and make your decision but don't hold off on having that difficult conversation just because it's difficult. Get in there and have this conversation with this individual and set them up on a path for success for the future. And that brings us to our last tip, create a path for recovery. Sit down with the individual, explain to them what they did wrong, explain what the discipline is going to be but also create a path where they can take some steps to show that they've moved on from either bad performance or bad behavior and that they can go off and be a model employee in the future again. Sit down with them and agree on what those steps are going to be and hold them accountable to take those steps. Now there are times when someone's done something, someone needs to be disciplined and whether it's a matter of policy or it's your decision as the leader that they can't be rehabilitated and it's time to let them go and that's okay. Sometimes that's the right decision to make but what we want to do is we want this to be a last resort and we certainly don't want this to be a knee-jerk reaction. So one of the best things we can do is make sure that we have a path for recovery for these individuals whenever they have a problem. The bottom line on this is that discipline is never easy but like most of the leadership topics we talk about here being deliberate and conscious about your words and actions can make this situation better. Knee-jerk reactions and emotional outbursts almost never help the problem and usually lead to regrets later on. Taking some time of being conscious in your words and actions can help make this disciplinary process go better for the person who needs the corrective action and it'll help keep morale on your team high. If you found this helpful please like comment and share it with a friend or co-worker. Click on that link below that'll take you to where you can download our free leadership development plan workbook and that'll help you set your goals for the next two, five and ten years and build a plan of action to achieve them. If you have any business or leadership questions leave us a comment below or email us at info at evilgeniusleadership.com we'd love to hear from you. EvilGeniusleadership.com is also where you can learn about our coaching and training program so if you want to do some one-on-one work developing your leadership style of skills or you want us to come work with your team for some leadership development get in touch with us we'll set you up with a free consultation and see how we can help you. Thanks for watching today. I really appreciate it. Remember the future is out there. Leave the way.