Leadership
Hold people accountable with courage and good intentions
On a leadership panel, Trehan Stenton explains why honest, supportive conversations and visible intentions keep good people in a small business.
Panel Discussion: Leadership, Accountability, and Human Behaviour | Align Leaders Summit 2020
Video from The Eighth Mile.
Generated from the canonical interview transcript and validated against source data by Guests on Air.
How can small business leaders hold staff accountable without losing them?
Start from the assumption that people who fall short often do not know it. Name the behaviour you have observed in a calm, supportive conversation, explain why it matters, and give them the chance to change. Pair that honesty with daily recognition and a clear sense of purpose, so staff can see your intentions are good and want to stay.
Most managers know the moment. A team member keeps arriving late, standards slip, and the easy options are to say nothing or to let the person go. Both feel simpler than a direct talk. On a panel at the Align Leaders Summit 2020, business owner Trehan Stenton argued that both options waste people who could become excellent at their work.
Trehan Stenton spoke from the experience of running a team in a service business during a hard trading period. The panel took audience questions on leadership, accountability and human behaviour, and the answers kept returning to one theme: how a leader behaves when no one is watching decides whether staff follow, stay and improve, or quietly leave for somewhere else.
Three ideas from that discussion stand out for any owner or team leader. Money is rarely what keeps good people. Intentions only count when staff can see them in daily behaviour. And a courageous conversation, held kindly and early, can turn someone you were ready to dismiss into one of the most reliable members of the team.
Key takeaways
- Pay matters, but it works as a baseline; recognition and support for growth are what keep staff engaged.
- Tell your team plainly that their success is your success, then back it up with daily thanks.
- People follow a leader whose purpose is clear and whose behaviour matches it, especially when times are hard.
- Many performance problems come from people who simply do not know; a supportive, honest conversation can fix them.
1. Money keeps people in the door, recognition keeps them engaged
Trehan Stenton was open about the mistakes made along the way. Like many owners, the business tried to motivate staff with extra payments, expecting money to lift effort and loyalty. It did not work the way they hoped. Pay has to be fair, but once it is, more of it rarely changes how people feel about coming to work each day.
What does change it, in Trehan Stenton's view, is what the workplace offers beyond the pay packet. The message to the team is direct: the leader's job is to serve them and help them grow into the role they want. Staff hear, in plain words, that their success is the leader's success, so the natural question becomes what support they need next.
Recognition carries much of that weight. Sometimes it happens in front of the whole team and sometimes one to one, but it is specific: the person is told that the work matters, that they make a difference and that they live the values of the business. During a difficult stretch for the business, Trehan Stenton described digging deeper every day simply to thank staff and show them their contribution.
2. Lead with intentions your team can see
Asked which single trait defines a good leader, Trehan Stenton chose intentions: showing that you are there to do the right thing. Saying so is not enough. The leader has to explain to the team what the purpose is and why the work is done a certain way, then behave in a way that matches that purpose every day.
When staff see that match, they respond. Trehan Stenton described a valued staff member who resigned. Rather than accept the loss, the owner asked whether she would stay on part-time, for whatever hours suited her. She agreed, and the reason given was that she valued being led by someone whose intentions were plainly good for the team and for staff themselves.
That kind of loyalty is harder to earn in workplaces full of corporate language that does not ring true. Trehan Stenton's point was that people notice insincerity quickly. A leader who is genuine, open and honest in how problems are approached gives staff a reason to follow, and that trust becomes valuable when the business goes through a challenging period.
3. Have the courageous conversation, kindly
Trehan Stenton was clear that much poor performance is not deliberate. At an operational level, people inside a business often lack the courage to raise a problem, so the person concerned never hears it. A useful way in is to name the gap gently: this is what you say you want, these are the behaviours I see, are you aware of the difference?
The example came from the dental practice. A young dental assistant in her first job was arriving late and not meeting the expected standard. Trehan Stenton asked the team leader whether anyone had held the courageous conversation, and asked for it to be done in a supportive way. The assistant had simply not realised. Once she knew, she changed, and she is now excellent.
In the past, Trehan Stenton said, the business would probably have fired her and written her off. The owner felt proud of finding the courage to push the supervisor to speak up, because the result was a capable employee rather than another vacancy. The approach depends on the situation, but it works when the conversation comes from a good place, with good intentions and no hidden agenda.
