A senior leader slumped into the chair across from me and let out a heavy sigh. “Oh my goodness,” she said, exasperated, placing her head in her hands.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“Tanner is killing me,” she exclaimed. “He keeps missing things he’s supposed to be doing. I’m constantly having to remind him—it’s his job! I have other things to do. I got promoted out of that job. I don’t want to keep doing it!”

She rattled off the list of things he kept dropping and why they mattered.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” she mumbled.

I listened fully, then asked, “Is there a specific part of his job description he doesn’t understand?”

Without missing a beat, she replied: “We don’t have job descriptions.”

I sat in stunned silence. The operations department of a multi-million-dollar company had no job descriptions for its employees.

“Having a job description guides expectations,” I offered gently. “Without one, he’s shooting in the dark. What seems obvious to you—because you’ve been here a long time—isn’t obvious to him. Write a job description and review it with him line by line. That will create a shared baseline.”

That week, she drafted a simple job description—about ten bullets in total, including things like “write the schedule and manage labor to target,” “order the truck based on inventory and sales forecast,” and “oversee cash handling and deposits.” It was a solid starting point, but the bullets lacked specificity. There was no mention of what the labor targets actually were or how performance would be measured over time. I encouraged her to go back through and write out the details she knew in her head—like the daily labor percentage goals and how they rolled up across the month. We turned those bullets into sub-points with tangible KPIs—something I often help organizations think through as part of defining role clarity and performance alignment. I took her notes and helped build a clearer, more complete version.

That step—getting expectations out of her head and onto paper—became the turning point. Suddenly, there was alignment. Tanner knew what was expected, and she had something concrete to hold him to.

That kind of clarity doesn’t just help one employee—it strengthens team onboarding, supports better documentation, and lays the groundwork for more consistent coaching and accountability.

A Simple Leadership Check-In: E.S.R.C.

Whenever a team member is struggling—or a leader is frustrated—this model can be used to diagnose where the breakdown is happening.

One of the clearest and most practical leadership tools I teach is the E.S.R.C. model.-
Expectations. Skills. Resources. Consequences.

Use this framework to ask four questions:
E – Are the expectations clear (to them—not just you)?
S – Do they have the skills required?
R – Are the necessary resources in place?
C – Are the consequences known?

Let’s break it down.

E – Expectations

Clarity starts here—and too often, it’s missing.

We assume expectations are clear because we think they should be. Maybe we showed them how to do it once. Maybe they’ve been around the business for a while. Maybe it’s “not rocket science.”

Assumption is not leadership.

Unmet expectations often trace back to unclear direction. As leaders, that’s on us.

Effective leaders define what needs to be done, when it’s due, how it should be done, and who should be included. Anything less invites confusion.

S – Skills

Even clear expectations fall flat if someone doesn’t have the skillset to meet them.

Here’s a quick example:

Jon had the longest tenure and was the top-performing CSR. He was loyal, hardworking, and well-liked. So when a new Customer Service Manager (CSM) role opened up, he was the obvious choice.

But a few months in, performance dropped. You sit in on one of Jon’s team meetings. He talks at length, shares some tactics, hands out a to-do list, and ends the meeting. No questions. No connection. No energy.

Jon was a great service rep. But he lacked leadership skills.

Leading others isn’t the same as executing tasks. When promotions are based solely on trust or tenure, we can unintentionally set people up to fail.

R – Resources

Now let’s say Jon is a great leader. He has the skills and understands the KPIs. But his team is down by five people. Staffing is tight, and he can’t meet call volume targets.

It’s not a performance issue—it’s a resource issue.

Without the right tools, headcount, information, or time, even the best performers will struggle. Expectations must be matched with real, operational support—whether that's staffing, tools, workflow clarity, or system-level infrastructure.

C – Consequences (or Outcomes)

If the first three letters are in place, this final step ensures accountability.

The word “consequence” often feels negative, but it simply means there’s clarity around outcomes. What happens if goals are missed—or hit?

Does the team know what’s at stake for them, for the customer, or for the organization?

If Jon’s team misses their call volume, does he understand how that affects customer experience and brand loyalty? And if they exceed the goal, how are they celebrated?

When people know how their work connects to outcomes, both performance and motivation improve.

It’s Not Just for Struggling Teams

You might be thinking: “The business is performing. People generally know what to do. The system works.”

But I’ve seen too many organizations wait until a tenured vet moves on, a key leader gets sick, or what used to work stops working… only to realize what they had wasn’t really a system—it was a person, a habit, or a workaround only one or two people understood.

When your structure lives in someone's head, you don't own it—

you're borrowing it.

Sometimes there are no systems at all. More often, they’re shallow, scattered, or built on memory that’s walking out the door. They lack the clarity, depth, and continuity needed to sustain growth. They may have been enough to get by—but not enough to grow well.

Clarity isn’t just for the struggling—it’s for the sustainable. Reviewing systems, clarifying roles, and capturing essential knowledge aren’t cleanup tasks—they’re building blocks for what comes next.

🪜 Your First Step

Start small.

Pick one role that’s core to your success. Ask yourself:

Are expectations clear?
Does this person have the right skills?
Are we giving them what they need?
Do they understand what’s at stake?

If you get stuck or don’t know where to begin—you don’t have to do it alone. This kind of systems thinking and leadership support is exactly what I build with organizations ready to grow well.