Last week I encountered someone in a management position, and I felt compelled to share this experience with you. It was a young manager I was dealing with, and I found something very peculiar.

First of all, I noticed right away that when she spoke to me, she was bright-eyed and all smiles. But as soon as one of her staff came over to her, she dimmed her eyes, lowered her eyebrows, lost her smile, and dropped her tone. This was all happening right in front of me, the customer.

Then she came back and talked to me and she was all smiles. She asked if I was enjoying my trip, and where we have already travelled. Then another one of her staff came through and the same thing happened.

Have you ever encountered that? Or are you the manager who does that?

First of all, this does not look good to the customer. I was sitting there thinking, "Wow, that’s a bit two-faced! Look at the difference in how she treats her customers and how she treats the people she works with." This was on a ship. These people work together, eat together, live together for 9 months straight.

This manager did not have the proper people skills to help her pull the best out of her staff. Not only that, but she had a degrading tone. I felt so bad for the employee because it was so humiliating. This was all taking place in front of the customers.

There was something else that stood out to me. I talked with this manager to find out a little bit more about her and learned she considered herself a religious person. She spoke very highly of her Christian religion.

She said to me, "I heard you were recently on one of our other ships. Who was the manager over there?" I told her it was Sally (I’ve changed the name to protect her). She said, "Oh yeah…Sally. She and I have had a couple run-ins." I thought to myself, "Well, I’m not surprised…"

She went on to say, "Sally and I got into a conversation about my religion. And well, I’ll just say this: NOBODY says anything bad about my religion. You can disrespect my religion one time, but I won’t take it again after that. You can argue with me about anything, but do NOT argue with me about God. Sally just doesn’t get it, though. I have planted some seeds about God in her life, and I’ll just have to pray those seeds come to fruition."

I asked this young woman, "Do you think arguing with someone is the best way to lead them to God?" That definitely caused her to stop and think for a minute.

Here’s the reason I’m telling you this story: This young woman is a believer in the same God I believe in. She reads the same Bible I read. She is in a management position, and yet she is talking bad about another manager who does the exact same job she does. She treats her employees with humiliation and embarrassment.

Now, I spent 2 weeks on a ship with Sally. She does not know my God. She does not read the same Bible I read. But Sally loves her staff and treats her team the same way she treats her customers – with honor and respect.

I did not hear Sally say anything bad or negative about anybody. She did not gossip about another ship’s manager, that’s for sure. The Christian manager was gossipping to me about someone I actually know and have a relationship with! In fact, Sally has been to our website and has gotten the book First Steps to Wealth. I did not bash Sally over the head about my relationship with my God. I simply chose to love her as she was.

Please understand what I’m saying. If you are a believer in the same God, please evaluate your heart. If you are in any kind of leadership role, whether you’re a parent, a business owner, or community leader, loving one another is what we’re supposed to do. Do you treat your staff with disdain? Do you talk to them like they’re stupid?

If you call yourself a believer, we are held to a much higher responsibility. It’s through our conduct, the way we live out our lives, that we attract people to want what we have. What we have is God, His Word and His Son who was sent to die for our sins. We are supposed to be examples of that. Not judgmental, not disrespectful, not gossipping. We are called to a much higher place of responsibility than that. And it’s simple: Honor. Treat others the way we want to be treated.

Even if you’re NOT a believer! I respect you, no matter what your faith is. I really, truly do. I have hundreds of thousands of clients from every walk of life you can imagine, and I respect each of them. I understand where they’re coming from. I once hated God because of people who gossipped, judged and humiliated me, and did not follow the right example set by Him.

So whether you’re a believer or not, if you are in a leadership role, let The Daily Fix today inspire you to make a decision about what kind of person you will be.

Go ahead and share this message with your friends, family and co-workers today! This is a message we can all learn from, so just post the link on Facebook and Twitter!

Be sure to join me live this Sunday night on The Dani Johnson Show! We’ll be spending 2 hours together talking about the topics that are important to YOU! Tune in on your radio or TV.

In great faith,

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