Leadership Lessons from a Hair Salon

Leadership Lessons from a Hair Salon

This week I got a haircut at one of the major haircut chains.  I settled into the chair and started making small talk with the stylist.  Just then the manager walked out of the back room and told the stylists she needed to know each of their shirt sizes.  One of the stylists replied by saying, “What, we have to wear uniforms now?”  The manager said she didn't know anything about it and was just following orders from the district manager.  To make matters worse, there were at least 3 customers in the salon and several of the hair stylists were overweight.  Talk about putting someone in an uncomfortable position…

My stylist then sighed and explained to me they just had a uniform change a few weeks ago and they used to be able to wear whatever they want.  She was concerned that now they would be going to full uniforms.  I tried to cheer her up by telling her it is probably just a t-shirt for an upcoming promotion.  She said, “Hopefully.”

Where did the manager slip up here?  Both the timing and content of the message to the stylist team was poor.  Some managers are so eager to pass on communication to their team that they fail to analyze the content of the message and location of the delivery.  In the case of the hair salon manager, she clearly could have collected more facts from her boss before asking her team about their shirt sizes.  Being fresh off a uniform change, she should have anticipated questions and frustration from her stylist team just from mentioning the words “shirt size.”  Next, she should have never asked for their shirt size in front of customers or other employees for that matter.

Communication debacles like this happen all the time in the work place.  As a leader, it is your responsibility to collect facts and think about how your team will receive your message.  If you anticipate a challenging response it is worth investing more time into preparing your message prior to delivering the communication.  A good leader is prepared to react to concerns and questions when communicating to their team. 

The salon manager probably finished up her week and never thought about this moment again.  The stylist team might forget about this one as well.  Mistakes like this when isolated are not the end of the world.  However, if routine day-to-day communication like this is fumbled I would hate to see how a major company change initiative is handled.