> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.holdtraffic.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # The Easy Ones Get Coached - URL: https://www.holdtraffic.com/the-easy-ones-get-coached/ - Published: 2026-09-17T15:32:18.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-17T15:32:18.000Z - Description: When accountability depends on who you're dealing with, the standard isn't really the standard anymore. Sometimes the easiest employees to coach end up receiving the most coaching—and that's a leadership problem. - Author: Justin Storch - Tags: 911dispatch, culture, leadership There is a strange thing that happens in workplaces when it comes to accountability. The employees who are easiest to coach often get coached the most. They listen. They take the feedback. Maybe they get irritated for a minute, but they adjust and move forward. Then there is the employee everyone knows will turn a simple conversation into a fight. They argue. They deflect. They point fingers. They make the conversation so uncomfortable that eventually supervisors start deciding some things just aren't worth addressing. And without anyone intentionally deciding to do it, the standard begins to change. Not on paper. But depending on the person. ## That's Just How They Are Every workplace has some version of this sentence. *"That's just how they are."* Sometimes it is said with a laugh. Sometimes with an eye roll. Sometimes it is offered as an explanation for why somebody wasn't confronted about something everyone else knows would have been addressed with another employee. It sounds harmless. But it isn't. Because what we're really saying is that we've adjusted our expectations based on how difficult someone is to deal with. Think about how backwards that is. The employee who accepts feedback gets corrected because we know the conversation will go reasonably well. The employee who becomes defensive, argumentative, or combative gets left alone because nobody wants the headache. We've accidentally created a system where being difficult can protect you from accountability. Meanwhile, being reasonable makes you easier to correct. That's not a standard. That's avoidance. ## Everyone Is Watching In a 911 center, very little happens in isolation. We're sitting together for hours at a time. We hear conversations. We see who gets pulled aside. We notice who gets away with things. We know who can bend a rule and who can't. You may think a coaching conversation is between a supervisor and an employee and the details should be, but the culture surrounding it isn't. People notice patterns. If one telecommunicator is corrected for a behavior while another routinely does the same thing without consequence, eventually people stop questioning the behavior. They start questioning the leadership. And once that happens, you've got a much bigger problem. The conversation changes from: *"I need to improve this."* to: *"Why am I being talked to when they do it too?"* That's a hard question to answer. Especially when they're right. ## Accountability Isn't Punishment Part of the problem may be the way we think about accountability. Accountability doesn't have to mean discipline. Sometimes accountability is simply a conversation. *"Hey, I've noticed this. Here's what I need you to do differently."* That's it. Most problems don't need to start with paperwork, write-ups, or formal discipline. They need someone willing to address the issue early, clearly, and consistently. Good employees should be able to receive feedback without feeling like they're in trouble. Good supervisors should be able to give feedback without making it feel like punishment. When accountability is part of the normal culture, coaching becomes less dramatic. The problem comes when we avoid those little conversations until the issue becomes too big to ignore. Then everyone wonders why we're suddenly having a major conversation about something that's been happening for six months. ## Fair Doesn't Always Mean Identical There is an important distinction here. Consistency doesn't mean treating every situation exactly the same. Context matters. Experience matters. Intent can matter. Training can matter. Previous conversations can matter. There are plenty of legitimate reasons two situations that look similar from across the room may be handled differently. Leadership requires judgment. But there should still be a recognizable standard underneath those decisions. If two people demonstrate the same performance problem, both should expect that problem to be addressed. Maybe the conversations aren't identical. Maybe the response isn't identical. But the expectation shouldn't magically disappear because one of them is harder to deal with. That's the difference between exercising judgment and playing favorites. ## The Difficult Conversation Is Part of the Job Supervision would be pretty easy if everyone responded well to supervision. Some people aren't going to. They may get angry. They may disagree. They may tell their friends you're picking on them. They may point out everything everyone else has ever done wrong since the center opened. They may leave your office unhappy. None of that changes the standard. One of the responsibilities that comes with leadership is being willing to have conversations we'd rather not have. Avoiding a difficult employee doesn't make the problem disappear. It usually just transfers the problem to everyone around them. Now their coworkers are frustrated. Resentment starts building. People begin keeping score. And eventually the employees who have been doing what you've asked start wondering why they're bothering. That's a high price to pay just to avoid an uncomfortable conversation. ## Standards Have to Survive Personalities Most centers have policies. Most have SOPs, training expectations, attendance requirements, performance standards, and rules about professional conduct. Those things matter. But culture isn't determined only by what's written in the policy manual. It's determined by what we actually tolerate. If the written expectation says one thing but everybody knows certain people don't have to follow it, the unwritten rule wins every time. That's why accountability is such an important part of culture. It tells people whether the things we say matter actually matter. If professionalism matters, it has to matter when our best employee falls short. If teamwork matters, it has to matter when our friend isn't being a good teammate. If performance matters, it has to matter when the person struggling is someone we don't particularly want to confront. And if a standard is worth having, it should survive the personality of the person we're applying it to. ## Look in the Mirror, Too There is another side to accountability that we don't talk about enough. It isn't just something supervisors give employees. Sometimes employees need to hold up the mirror for us. Leaders make inconsistent decisions. We miss things. We have blind spots. We can unintentionally give someone more latitude than someone else. Sometimes somebody is going to say: *"You addressed this with me, but you're allowing it over there."* Our first instinct shouldn't automatically be to defend ourselves. Maybe they're deflecting. But maybe they have a point. Leadership requires enough humility to consider that possibility. Accountability loses credibility very quickly when leaders demand it from everyone except themselves. ## The Standard Is the Standard The goal isn't to create a center where everyone is constantly looking over their shoulder waiting to get in trouble. That's not accountability. That's fear. The goal is to create a place where people know what's expected, where feedback is normal, where mistakes can be corrected, and where employees trust that expectations don't change depending on who's involved. People don't need perfect leaders. They need predictable ones. They need to know that the same basic expectations apply whether you're the newest trainee in the room, the strongest dispatcher on the shift, the supervisor's friend, the employee who has been there twenty years, or the person everybody dreads confronting. Because eventually people figure out what the real standards are. Not the ones hanging on the wall. Not the ones buried in the policy manual. The ones we're actually willing to enforce.