She was one of our supervisors and I couldn’t recall ever seeing her so animated in a conversation; you could feel frustration with every word. She told me of her efforts to make it work, of everything she had “accepted” that was less than what she wanted, rules she allowed to be bent, attempts to be “reasonable” as she put it. With a huff in her voice, she looked at me with fire in her eyes and said, “I want to fire her now, today, right now. I’m done, I can’t take it anymore.”

Ever been frustrated by someone on your team to this level? It’s not uncommon if you manage people. If you’re curious, no, we didn’t fire her, making the supervisor mad at me. What she had done wasn’t an offense to get you fired. In tolerating so much unacceptable behavior and performance, she had created the wrong standards, and the employee was quite happy with the situation. The supervisor had been tolerant, to a fault.

There is a law of nature, whether you like it or not, that we won’t change until we are fed up with something, when we are no longer willing to accept the status quo. In Edwin Friedman’s book, “A failure of nerve”, one of his three universal laws of children is, “Parents cannot produce change in a troubling child, no matter how caring, savvy, or intelligent they may be, until they become completely and totally fed up with their child’s behavior.”

Let me translate that into a statement that will help you be a better leader.

You cannot produce change in a troubling employee, no matter how caring, savvy, or intelligent you may be, until you become completely and totally fed up with their behavior.

The best leaders I ever worked with were ones that had high expectations of their team, and a low tolerance for performance against those expectations. They were quick to be “fed up” and dealt with it quickly. Leaders, just like parents, who are consistent in holding their team or children accountable will have expectations met far more often than not. The misses will be infrequent.

Those who keep hoping things will get better, believing the employee will “see the light”, saying to themselves “it’s not so bad” or rationalizing that this is “just a little blip”, will not get what they want and hope for. The person won’t get it on their own until they finally become “fed up” and are ready to deal with it.

When you finally are “fed up”, recognize that you do not have permission to be mean, cruel, or vindictive to someone. Being “fed up” just signals to both of you that the “status quo” is no longer acceptable. Once you do, and you stay with it, you’ll have a much better chance of getting behavior change.

Most will get the message and make the change.

Some will need help with changing, which could be training to improve performance, or constantly reminding them for a short while that something is not acceptable.

Sadly, some are stubborn and don’t want to change. For those who refuse to change, you can simply help them find a career opportunity elsewhere, which will probably help productivity and morale on your team.

You’ll be much happier if you learn to get “fed up” more quickly and deal with it.

Remember, too, that knowing what is right to do and then not doing it is sin. James 4:17 (TLB)