A Very Slippery Slope…

Not so long ago in our Leading At The Next Level program, I put together a lesson called Don’t Confuse Quiet Quitting with a Lack of Leadership. Not only did I emphasize that the idea of “quiet quitting” was far from being something new, I did my best to step on as many toes as I could by stating that responsibility for it ever happening falls on the shoulders of the folks supervising and managing. And just in case that didn’t alienate enough people, I went on to share just how weak anyone in a leadership role would need to be to engage in the practice that’s now referred to as “quiet firing”...

I was so direct about both with hopes that the shock & awe would grab attention. Believe it or not, my goal wasn’t to piss off everyone who ever works through that lesson! Quite honestly, I struggle to imagine why any leader would ever intentionally allow quiet quitting to permeate their team and I refuse to refer to anyone who practices anything even vaguely resembling quiet firing as a leader.

With that out in the open, I’ll make one more statement: neither should be the norm in an organization when there’s a strong culture of accountability!

Here’s where you’re likely thinking, “Fair enough Wes, if that’s true, why do either of those terms even exist?” Simply put, both are symptoms of not recognizing the need for more accountability…

The folks who have recently been dubbed as the quiet quitters are in fact that group we looked at before who are neither actively engaged or actively disengaged; the 60% or so that Gallup’s 2022 State of the Global Workforce report referred to as “just along for the ride, creating drag for those who are rowing forward.” While I have seen the number vary between 50 & 60 percent over the years, this group in the middle that’s now called the quiet quitters has consistently made up the majority of the overall workforce - and it doesn’t have to be that way!

If we just take the steps to set clear expectations and maintain even a reasonable level of accountability, nearly everyone around us will perform to meet those expectations. It’s only when accountability falters that people slip into a subpar routine. And as that cycle perpetuates itself, we shouldn’t be surprised by half of our employees creating drag…

To compound what’s often an innocent miss by the management team due to fighting other fires, there are times where someone in a leadership role chooses to entirely avoid holding their folks accountable - for whatever reason - and slips into the behaviors that make up quiet firing. I know I wouldn’t rally around someone doing that and I’m guessing you wouldn’t either, so even more profit is killed in that area of the business…

I’ll stress again that this rarely happens quickly and the issues nearly always build gradually. That’s what makes this very slippery slope so dangerous! Regaining control and building accountability back into a culture isn’t all that difficult, and we’ll look at some simple steps we can take to do that soon, but first we need to make sure we’re prepared to address any issue appropriately. We can’t take the wrong approach by using too much candor or by using too much care. More on each of those next time!