Janice Stein, a political scientist at the University of Toronto, said a key indicator of a successful political leader is that he/she takes people to a place they don’t necessarily want to go. I like this, on a macro scale. Think Lyndon Johnson on civil rights legislation, Helmut Kohl on embracing the eastern part of Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall, or Nelson Mandela on healing a nation divided (see the film Invictus for a vivid portrayal of the latter).

Now take this concept micro, down to the one-on-one relation between you (the boss) and one of your employees who is listless, sloppy, and clearly underperforming. You want him to change…to a new way of working: doing the job asked of him. If this individual is, in fact, capable of doing the job well, the problem is one of attitude, of lack of motivation.

The best leaders at the mid level are able to turn around this commitment thing. They:

• Clearly lay out what they expect from their under performer
• Raise for discussion current gap in his performance
• Express their belief in his ability to do the job well
• Lay out the benefits, to both the employee and the organization, of a solid job performance
• Involve him in identifying the obstacles to his performing better
• Get him (i.e. not the boss) to come up with a plan to turn around his performance
• Reach agreement on the plan, with specific actions, measures and time frames

Going deeper, the leader might probe into what the employee wants from his job, what motivates him, and what’s missing for him as a motivator in his current work. All the while, in the background hangs the potential for consequences if the staff member chooses not to change. The leader brings tough love to the situation.

The best bosses foster a mindset of high performance in their unit. They get all of their people to want success and want to perform at a level of which they can be personally proud. Almost all of your people want these–success, pride, accomplishment. You can count on this because they are human beings. When you first confront a poor performer, however, they just don’t realize that they do.