A small little even triggered me to think about loyalty. Interestingly, last night, I have discussed the ‘value’ of loyalaty and how loyalty CAN be bought. Well, I’m not 100% in agreement with the fact loyalty can bought – I’m more on the thought that loyalty has been earned by the person that wants the loyalty. Ie. If I want loyalty from my staff, I need to earn it from them, I cannot buy it.
Nevertheless, however loyalty is obtained, loyalty is a very important transactional value for a business. Loyal employees, staff have a much higher value to an organization than ‘transitional’ employees. And this yields itself to the question, “How do you evaluate loyalty?”
First, I think loyalty is first determined WHEN the other person has something to gain by exercising some kind of a power gain BUT they choose NOT to use that power to advance their cause. Another words, when I see that a person that works for me has an opportunity to advance their personal gain, and can see that they COULD do it, but when they DON’T do it, it shows loyalty. When that trait has been observed several times, that person, in my eyes becomes deemed loyal – and would have to do much wrong to loose my loyalty back to them.
However, onto the sharp edge of loyalty. If I have someone that I need to be loyal, and I cannot asses their loyalty, I will wait for proof loyalty. If the person fails the loyalty test (ie. has power and chooses to use it to gain advantage), they will be remove with extreme prejudice! This does not apply to all staff, and for some staff loyalty is not expected nor desired, and those are different rules. But for some staff, loyalty is needed, expected – and if that staff fails – they need to be terminate with ‘extreme prejudice’ – as fast as possible regardless of cost – much how one would want to get rid of a cancer cell starting to grow in ones body.