Being equal or being fair

Are you a leader who exhibits fairness? Do you treat all your team members equally? If you equate fairness with equality, then you may not understand the concept of both.

The BPO industry is exploding. The growth has generated employment in the most dramatic way, and there’s no doubt that the economy has benefited from it. But it’s no secret that attrition is high. I have a clientele in this industry, but some people in HR have very little time to initiate many training programs because they’re just too busy recruiting talents to fill in seats or replace those who have left.

If one stays put in a company for a little while, the business expansion model in most cases would promote him or her to a leadership position over a cluster of six or maybe eight people, depending on the size of the company. In not so few cases, those people trusted to lead the team, and expected to inspire them to stay and perform better turns out to be the same people who drive their team members away. Why does this happen? In my opinion, these “leaders” received quick promotions but were never exposed to effective leadership skills training. In other words, they were never trained to be good leaders. The position was there, but the skills weren’t. This becomes even more evident when I hear some of them say, “But I treat all of my staff equally, because I want to be fair with them.”

Aha! That statement is proof that the leader doesn’t understand that being equal and being fair aren’t the same thing. I’ll explain why.

As a leader, you can certainly create rules and expectations, and administer them fairly. However, you don’t treat everyone the same way. If you were a basketball coach of a team and a newly recruited player is late for call time, you’d probably leave without him. You’d think, “Good for him. Now he’ll learn the lesson and take tardiness seriously.” But if the player who’s late happens to be a senior member who had built trust and rapport with the team, you’d probably wait for him. Most people outside the team would judge you, the coach, as being unfair. Why? Because the leader is expected to administer the same treatment to everyone in the team regardless of their tenure or stature, and you didn’t.

We demand fairness and hate injustice. Somehow we equate these with uniformity. But how do you measure the years, the contribution and the rapport the senior player has built over the years and the rookie has not?

I’m fair as far as raising up my kids are concerned; the fact of the matter is, I treat each one of them differently. It’s because they communicate and receive love differently, and so I need to adjust to each one, and not the other way around. Fairness doesn’t mean uniformity.

Leadership isn’t a title or a position. It’s more complex. One thing is clear: leadership skills are life skills. And they need to be updated and upgraded as well.

I like this quote from Brit Hume: “Fairness is not an attitude. It is a professional skill that must be developed and exercised.” Perhaps now that we know a little bit about fairness and equality, we would no longer gripe, complain and say, “God isn’t fair…” 

(Francis Kong will do his highly acclaimed whole-day seminar “Culture of Personal Excellence” on Oct. 17, 2013 at CCF Makati, A-Venue Mall, Makati Avenue. For further inquiries, contact Inspire at 09158055910, or call 632-6310912 for details.)