Trust Me or Sack Me.

One of my more infamous quotes at work is “trust me or sack me.” This is the shorter, pithier version of one of my stronger views, you should never hire people you don’t trust or have faith in. When you take on a new employee you are investing a lot of money and effort, both in initial outlay and over a period of time. If you don’t fully believe your hiring choice is the correct one then don’t make it. Otherwise you’ll be second guessing yourself, the employee will pick up on it and the rest of the team might not be too happy.

Now on to the more controversial part, if you’ve hired someone then give them the benefit of the doubt and let them do their job. There is an expression I’m quite fond of, “I don’t keep a dog and bark myself.”, if you find yourself second guessing, arguing or overriding your staffs viewpoints a lot then you need to either take a step back or seriously look at whether the employee has a future in your company because one way or another you do have a problem.