Companies are far from perfect. Even those which make quality control a top priority slip from time to time where someone along the way will eventually make a mistake, and one that may have a devastating impact. Fortunately, when people openly admit to their mistakes and do everything they can to make things right, most of those affected will be quite forgiving. After all, we’re all human, and all of us make mistakes.
However, in those cases where quality control is poorly managed and problems linger on for weeks or months, everyone is affected, including management, salespeople, customer service people, and worst of all, customers. During times of chaos, managers find themselves in precarious positions where they have little choice but to make excuses for corporate mishaps while shouldering the added stress of frustrated employees and irate customers unloading on them.
Consider the case of a large, national mortgage company with a highly disorganized accounts payable department where mortgage payments are either lost, or they are applied to accounts one, two, or even three months after receipt. When customers, who have squeaky-clean credit and religiously pay their bills on time, start receiving late notices from the mortgage company and calls from the internal collections department, they become irate. And, to compound the problem, some collectors treat these innocent customers as “deadbeats,” with no clue that the problems reside with the mortgage company, not the customer. After a few hundred calls from very angry customers and a bit of internal investigation, this huge internal problem is discovered. When senior management is confronted, the problem is acknowledged, but no answers for how, or when the problem will be fixed is provided.
As the manager of the call center and collections, you are placed directly in the line of fire where your team rightfully demands answers. What do you do? You have two options: 1) ride out the storm with the company, or 2) quit. Chances are, the problem will get fixed, but given the size of the organization, it may take days, if not months before new systems are put in place to correct the situation. Until this happens, your position will be much more stressful and you’ll probably be the sounding board for the angriest of your customers and employees who are at their wits end.
As long as you’re sitting in that management seat, you’ll be expected to suck it up and do the best you can to keep customers and employees calm. This will involve some very acute management skills, the most important of which is listening with understanding and empathy. You’ll also need to finesse your communication skills as the mortgage company you are working for is clearly in the wrong. These skills, along with many others are taught in leadership training, such as L.E.T. In other words, with the right skills, a manager’s job can be much less stressful where s/he can navigate through even the worst situations with ease and confidence.
We can probably all agree that leadership and management is easy when everything is perfect. But then again, when was the last time everything was perfect?