My youngest grandson is just shy of two years old.

One of his favorite activities is to drive the car.

It started several weeks ago when after arriving home from an outing his dad put him in his lap and he got to play with the steering wheel.

Now, whenever he gets out of his car seat he wants to drive the car before he goes inside.

He turns the wheel as best he can and he reaches for all the buttons on the dashboard. He is in the driver’s seat!

Over the last month I’ve had two separate conversations with small business owners facing comparable, difficult tasks of letting an employee go for performance issues.

In each case, as they shared their story with me, they both said something very close to, “I’ve been avoiding it as long as I can because I’m afraid of their reaction.”

Fear is in the driver’s seat keeping them from doing what they know they need to do.

Courage is sitting in the back seat of their leadership car and needs to jump up front and take over the steering wheel!

There are many reasons why both of these business owner’s need to begin to act courageously immediately. Let’s take a look at just a few of them.

In both of these cases, the behavior, or lack of behavior, is witnessed by customers and clients and likely is having a negative impact on their business.

In one case, equipment is not being taken care of and will lead to large, unnecessary expenses for the owner much sooner than they planned.

Other employees are being affected in a variety of ways because of the employees in both situations. The message is being sent that poor behavior and poor performance will be tolerated and not dealt with perhaps leading to more issues with more employees.

Both business owners are very caring people and expressed concern for the employees that were facing being let go.

Sometimes the most caring thing we can do for someone is to let them go. Maybe they have been allowed to coast through most of their life and never been called out for their behavior. Sometimes letting someone go can be a smack upside the head that will wake them up to improve their behavior and their performance.

Not letting them go can be doing them a disservice.

Both expressed concern about operating their business efficiently short handed until they could find replacements.

I asked them if they would be better off short-handed or with these under performers in place for an undetermined amount of time.

Both replied they would be better off short-handed.

Courage requires us to act when it is uncomfortable.

Courage requires us to do the right thing even though it is hard.

It is important to point out that all of this is done following appropriate HR procedures to protect both the business owner and the employee.

If these business owners continue to let fear drive their car they will pay a price.

If these business owners allow courage to drive their car they will pay a price.

Which is the greater price, fear or courage?

Is there a task in your personal or professional life you are avoiding right now?

What drives your car, fear or courage?

What price are you paying because of what is in your driver’s seat?

Galatians 6:9

Have a STRONG and COURAGEOUS day!

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