I’d be lying if I said I nailed this one. Many times in meetings I felt that we were wasting time and that I was already past the issue. What we fail to realize is that everyone else in the meeting is there to complete the task at hand. This caused me to cut people off and say “got it.” It got so common that it became an office joke. Don’t do it. Raising your voice is the same. I know what you are saying, “but we just lost our biggest client.” Your people want to see you calm, cool and collected, especially when things are going wrong.

What I’ve also sometimes failed to understand is that as an entrepreneur with the responsibility of leading a company, our understanding of certain things are on a different level then the rest of the employees. We don’t realize that while we have all the details of every issue of the business, everyone else will seem like they are playing catchup even when they are doing a good job. This makes us perceive – wrongly so – that our people are not grasping things fast enough, resolving things fast enough or even communicating fast enough. Our own lack of perspective makes  us think we are wasting precious time. We have to be patient and understand that we need to take the time and listen to people to make sure everyone’s on the same page. The second issue that happens is when you cut people off, what you’re inadvertently doing is saying to your employees is that their opinion and ideas are not that important and trust to express ideas freely dwindles very quickly. Instead your job is to encourage participation, collaboration and creativity from everyone.

Do your best to keep good manners even in the midst of chaos. That’s where it really counts anyway.

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