Call Center Management Featured Article
Great Leaders Care About People, Take Responsibility
President Harry Truman famously had a sign about his Oval Office desk that said: The buck stops here.
The expression, as you probably know, indicates that he understood and was happy to accept responsibility for his administration’s decisions – rather than blaming those further down the line (or, passing the buck, as they say).
Those individuals who subscribe to the buck stops here form of leadership show great character. Instead of throwing their employees under the bus, as we now say, they understand that the sign of a great leader is to make the best decisions possible with the best information and advisors available. When those decisions yield good fortune, greater leaders celebrate the winning outcome as a team effort. When those decisions yield less than stellar results, however, greater leaders accept responsibility for those outcomes – and try to learn from that to make better decisions in the future.
With great power comes great responsibility.
The point is that while individual employees – such as a waiter as a restaurant, a front desk worker at a hotel, or an agent in a call center – may make mistakes or even be rude to customers, it’s up to their managers to train, coach, encourage, discipline (in rare cases), and engage them so they do better. Poor customer service and poor business outcomes are often the sign of a greater organizational problem – such as the way systems work, company culture, and/or a lack of leadership or the wrong kind of leadership.
The best leaders and managers care about their employees, are open to input, pay attention to their processes and procedures to ensure they deliver the company and customer experiences that are intended, and avoid micromanagement but take responsibility for their people and business outcomes.
Edited by Maurice Nagle