1. Unhealthy Norms Hidden Behind Numbers
When I became the manager of an educational sales team, I discovered several unhealthy practices that had quietly become normalized within the organization. One involved teachers paying membership fees out of their own pockets to keep withdrawn students officially enrolled on paper. Another involved delaying official withdrawal processing while privately managing tuition payments outside standard procedures.
The numbers themselves were not enormous. However, the real problem was the heavy financial and emotional burden these practices placed on frontline teachers. I was faced with a clear choice: accept the system as it was for short-term comfort, or try to change it despite the obvious risks. I chose the latter.
2. Leading from the Frontline, Not the Desk
At the time, two fundamental beliefs guided my decisions: “Have you even tried?” and “New employees have the right to make mistakes.” I made it unequivocally clear that inflated practices would no longer be tolerated. Yet, I did not want to become the kind of manager who simply imposed principles from above while leaving all the operational burdens to the staff.
So, I stepped into the field myself. I personally met with members who wanted to quit, supported recruitment activities when teachers became exhausted, and repeatedly trained staff on counseling and teaching methodologies. I wanted to lead alongside the team, not merely supervise them. As teachers saw their manager working right beside them in the trenches, they slowly began to open up and build genuine trust.
3. Culture Built on Small Choices
I also believed that true leadership is reflected in small, everyday behaviors. I was exceptionally careful with both my words and actions; threatening language and humiliating jokes were strictly prohibited. Furthermore, I rejected the prevailing culture where teachers were expected to pay for meals with managers, insisting instead that everyone pay for themselves.
These may have seemed like trivial details on the surface. However, real organizational trust is not built through grand slogans, but through small, ethical choices repeated consistently over time.
4. The Pain of Truth and the Eventual Turning Point
The transition was painful at first. Once the inflated performance figures vanished, our team’s official rankings dropped sharply. Some within the organization questioned whether I had disrupted a working system unnecessarily. Still, I held firmly to one conviction: performance built on distorted numbers eventually destroys the organization itself.
Over time, however, the internal atmosphere began to shift. Teachers became emotionally more stable, and the team grew genuinely cooperative. I had long maintained that “only when teachers feel emotionally secure can genuine sincerity reach students and parents.”
Eventually, that belief translated into undeniable real-world results. The team stabilized, consistently achieving top performance nationwide, and I was fortunate to receive several major company awards during that period. Looking back, the lesson was simple yet profound: in leadership, the most sustainable path is often the most honest one.
Author’s Note:
The two core beliefs that guided this journey were actually forged 40 years ago during a global supply chain crisis at Samsung. However, years later, when I applied these exact same principles to another troubled branch, I had to face the darkest and most painful consequences of my career.