Leveraging Leadership

Listener Question: How to Handle the One Team Member Who Won’t Submit Their Flash Report

• Emily Sander • Season 1 • Episode 200

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A Chief of Staff asks how to handle a team member who never submits their flash report, despite lots of reminders and training. Emily suggests letting the slacking team member feel the peer pressure in meetings, such as by leaving their section blank in the board report or calling on them in front of the group and holding an awkward silence. The episode covers practical escalation steps and emphasizes that, after fair attempts to help, it's okay to let someone face the consequences of not doing their part.

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Who Am I?

If we haven’t yet before - Hi👋 I’m Emily, Chief of Staff turned Executive Leadership Coach. After a thrilling ride up the corporate ladder, I’m focusing on what I love - working with people to realize their professional and personal goals. Through my videos here on this channel, books, podcast guest spots, and newsletter, I share new ideas and practical and tactical tools to help you be more productive and build the career and life you want. 

 

Time Stamps:

00:50 The Problem with One Team Member
03:30 Escalation Tactics
03:54 Using Peer Pressure and Silence
06:11 Further Escalation and Consequences
08:19 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

emily-sander_2_07-08-2025_133914:

All right. We have a listener question. We have Muriel s from Raleigh, North Carolina says, Hey, Emily. I'm a chief of staff at a mid-sized company, and one of my big responsibilities is keeping the rhythm of business running, including our weekly leadership meeting. I actually took your advice from an earlier episode and started doing a flash report with a team. Yay. And for the most part, it's been working great. Almost everyone's got their inputs ready each week. KPIs, updates the whole thing, and we pull it together and send it up to the board, except for one person. Dun dun, done. Okay. I've explained this more than once. Showed them how to do it on Zoom, even sat down in person and ran them through it again when they were on site. I know he prefers phone calls to email. So I've texted, called, you name it, and still every single week I'm chasing this person down. Like they haven't had this conversation 10 times already. Ooh, I'm all for meeting people where they're at, but at this point, I'm running out of ways to be helpful. How do I get someone like this to step up and just do their part without turning it into a whole big thing? Okay. Okay, first of all, awesome. You're doing the Flash Report. Awesome. It's working for the majority of the team, and it sounds like you've done a lot here. So it sounds like you've tried to meet this person halfway and train them up on what they need to do. For the Flash report I. I have many thoughts and feelings coming up here. Uh, it sounds like you've gone above and beyond to try to get them on board with this thing. I've, I've been this, been in this scenario myself, Muriel, and I've heard this, this scenario so many times, so many times from chiefs of staff and also from other CEOs and C-Suite team members about we do this one thing and this one person can't seem to get it. Um, what are my thoughts and feelings? One of my feelings, to be honest, is. Righteous anger at this. It's like, come on, people. Um, you've, you've gone above and beyond. So here's, here's, lemme collect my thoughts here for people listening. I. First step, do what Mariel has done, which is do what is fair and reasonable to train people up. If a flash report or something like that is brand new to the team, you're gonna, you're gonna have to take some time to roll this out, to explain it, to explain why, to explain what to show people. Here's how you actually do the KPIs and the rollouts, how we're thinking about it. And you do that once or twice, and maybe it's not perfect, but it's closer. And then third or fourth time you get there. All do all that. And it sounds like you've done that Muriel. So awesome job. If there's some people who like aren't as fast on the uptake for whatever reason and need some individual help, then you go do that. And if they don't get it right the first time, but they're trying, then you work with them some more. That's just how you do it. You meet them, um, where they're at with their communication style, do all the things that Muriel has talked about doing, and then, and then if they still don't do it. Repeatedly, and you've given them, you've given them every opportunity to do it, and they still don't do it. Then there comes a time where you want to intentionally and thoughtfully let them feel the negative consequences of their action or inaction. IE you let them fall. You let them fall a little bit. You let them stumble, and you let them look. Not the greatest in front of their team. Peer pressure is a thing, all right? Peer pressure is a total thing and you use that wisely, and you don't throw it around recklessly, but you do use it. It's a real thing when you're in your weekly leadership meeting and everyone else has their KPI KPIs and everyone else has their rollouts and everyone else is ready to go, and then you turn to, let's say, Joe, and it's like, Joe, your update please. Uh, uh uh, let me tell some jokes or let me talk about the baseball game, or let me talk about this, or let me deflect or talk about anecdotal stuff, or kind of talk about thematic stuff. And it's like, where are your KPIs and do you have the rollout like everyone else? And if you make it clear that he's the odd one out, it makes him look bad. And sometimes that's where it's at. Sometimes it's like, oh yeah, we are gonna call you out. And here's the thing, many people don't do well with silence. And so creating that awkward silence is actually a tool you can use. Again, don't be mean about it. Don't just like punish people. But if it's to this point, Joe, your updates, please. Your KPIs. Oh, you know, uh, we had a great week. Um, you know, the team really rallied. I was so proud. We had a great, uh, conversation with this one person and then another great conversation where she said she was gonna do this, and that's, that's fantastic. And, um, you know, travel kind of was tough with the back and forth. Yeah. Joe, we talked about last week having KPIs around this specific thing as a team, and we wanted to look at this from different angles, and you are gonna bring. X, Y, and Z from your department. Can you rule out those KPIs? Uh, I mean, I just said, I just kind of talked about No, you were talking about some other conversations you had the KPIs. We talked about silence. Sit there in silence. It's awkward. People are looking at Joe, people are looking at each other. People are looking at you and you hold the silence. And then you let Joe kind of flummox around and then you go, okay. So Joe, it sounds like you don't have the KPIs and the rest of the team did. Allow Joe to feel that and be like, oh, this is, this is uncomfortable. Okay, this is not great. I don't like this. I don't like being the odd person out. Like, no. And there's an easy way to remedy that, Joe. Come on buddy. Okay. So that's one. I've had other chiefs of staff in similar situations where they take it to the next level and they will send the report up to the board. With Joe's section blank, knowing that everyone's going to key in on that and be like, what? Wait, what the heck is happening with Joe? We need the updates from Joe's department. That's an important department. And then the questions will come back from the board and instead of the CEO or the chief of staff buffering that question and answer, they send them directly to Joe. Depending on the dynamics, and again, be thoughtful here, apply judgment, but depending on the dynamics, that can also be a pressure filled situation where it's like you just forward the email with a follow-up question to Joe, or you have the board member you say. Here's Joe's phone number. Why don't you call him? Or I can schedule a joint call with myself and Joe and we can jump on and you can ask him that question directly. So all of these things are options. Again, don't be quote unquote mean about it. Don't be like, I'm gonna punish people for it just because I'm gonna be nasty. But there are levels of escalation here where again, if you've done everything fair and reasonable, if you've done everything that you can on your end and you're not being met halfway. Then there are these step functions or escalation steps that are the next step that are appropriate. If someone is not pulling their weight and everyone else is taking the time and taking the mental energy to put together they, their KPIs and sharing them with the leadership team and one person isn't. That's them one being disrespectful to their team members. Two, they're not doing their job. Part of their job is to. Is to share what their team is doing and be an ambassador for their functional group to the leadership team and share that. So they're not representing their team very well either, so they're not doing their job. You don't need to mollycoddle someone who is not doing their job on a long-term basis, right? You wanna give them opportunities and tools and the why, and blah, blah, blah, all these things. But there comes a point where the rubber meets the road, like Joe's gotta figure it out. Joe's gotta figure himself out. So. Let me, I went on on like a total tangent there. Lemme come back to this question, Muriel. Yes. Okay, so how do I do this without turning it into a big thing? I would actually make it a big thing. It sounds like you've done all this stuff, all this, all the stuff and things you're supposed to do. At this point I might turn it like, like a whole big thing, but just like, Joe, your updates, please, Joe, your updates please. Do you not have any updates? Awkward silence. Okay. Next week we would appreciate some updates. and then maybe next time it's. Joe, we talked about this last week. Um, we're gonna send these reports up to the board and like normally I fill out your section, Joe, but your section's gonna be blank. So if you want something for next week, let me know. Wait, no, no. Like don't send my stuff up blank this week. I'm sorry, but if you don't get in on time with everyone else, like that's just how it goes. But you know, next week we can get yours in. So like little escalation steps like that you pick what's appropriate for you and your team and your Joe quote unquote. Um, just again, making this up, but you are closer to it. You know, this individual in question, you know, the team dynamics, you know, the board dynamics, you know, your relationship with this individual. So cater this to, to your specific scenario, but take the gist of what I'm saying and take the, the theme of what I'm saying, which is there comes a point where you gotta let them fall and I'm, Hmm. There's an analogy coming to my head. It's, it's to do with like a little children. Little kids. Again, I don't mean to be pejorative. I don't mean to be derogatory, but this is apt in some ways. So you have a little kid, let's say little Johnny is learning to ride a bike, and you're like, Johnny, you gotta pedal like this buddy. You gotta pedal like this or else you're gonna fall over. No, no, no. I'm, you gotta pedal like this. Let me show you again. Let me show, let me hold your hands. Hold the handrails. Okay, I got it. You got it. Are we good? And they don't do it. It's like, all right. That kid is gonna fall. If I don't keep helping them, that kid's gonna fall and it's gonna hurt. There comes a point where you let little Johnny fall. Now are you gonna let little Johnny fall off the edge of a cliff face and like concuss themselves and have compound fractures their first time? No. You're not gonna do that. Are you gonna hold your hands next to little Johnny's handrails and let him fall and scrape his knee and go, oh, ow that stings. Oh yeah, they said pedal this way, not that way. Okay, let me try it that time. That might be an analogy you can use here. You're not gonna let'em crash and burn, although that is an option. Just, just to throw that out there. I have seen this where. This has gone on long enough and there's multiple data points. There's all this stuff going on behind the scenes where it's like, all right, we've got a board meeting. Everyone else is prepped, everyone else has participated, and we're gonna go in and Joe is gonna get this question. And we've told him he is gonna get this question and he's not engaged with us, and so we're just gonna let him go in there. And light himself on fire and oh my gosh, it's on fire and oh my gosh, there's a smoke cloud. And now, okay, now there's like a mushroom cloud, like all this thing, there are like set specific times and places for those things to happen. I. I don't think it's here. I think what you're talking about here is more of a let's little, let little Johnny scrape their knee and see if that gets their attention. And sometimes it does and sometimes it's like, oh, okay. Totally got it. Like I was called out in front of my team. That's not gonna happen again. So now only come back to you, chief of staff, to you, Mariel, and give you a draft of my flash report. Is this good to go? Are we good to go now? Yep. That's good to go. Thank you so much Joe, and you carry on your own merry way. Okay. So hopefully that answered it. sorry if I got a little animated there. I have seen this over and over and over again and it's super frustrating. I. I had a situation very similar to this, and I've heard so many chiefs of staff speak about this as well. So thank you for asking the question. Mariel, I can guarantee you people listening. There's more people listening than you know who are like, yes, yes, I'm in this situation too. So you've helped a lot of people by asking this question. And by the way, if you are listening and you have a question of your own or your own take on a question or want some input or just thoughts on something, So feel free to drop a question in the comments or drop me a DM on LinkedIn or email me directly at Emily at Next Level Coach, and I'll catch you next week on leveraging Leadership.