King Solomon's judgment acumen would be really useful right now

How do you know that you're the boss? You know when you're the boss (or at least one of them) when you're put in the unhappy position of having to punish a member of your staff for proven offenses against the organization.

Yech. I would make for a poor judge I think, in the sense that although I can distinguish facts, stories, and interpretation pretty well, I'm horrible with punishment. How long? How severe? How much?

I'm one of those people who feel that guilt (and the accompanying remorse) is punishment enough. Guilt as suffering is terrible (to me, at least).

Suspension, as a punishment of offenses against the company (which impacts the offender with the loss of income that would have been earned while working) makes sense to me more when the offender is suspended to protect the organization from further offense from the same (and of the same nature). Honestly I can think of very few offenses that are so repeatable in this fashion, and most of these would be done by individuals that are shown to be unapologetic and remorseless.

So when an employee shows authentic remorse, along with an offer to make amends, then suspension makes less sense.

In my own experience, having been suspended once, the time that I served only set me back in improving the operations whose breakdowns were the issue of my suspension in the first place. I feel that it set the organization back further to punish with a suspension - what would have worked was to require me (or the employee) to report to work without pay.

This would have tested the authenticity of my desire to make amends, and I did too! I attended a meeting one day, and performed in a consulting capacity for another business unit in the next.

However, requiring people to work without pay is illegal (involuntary servitude). The employee must sign waivers that clear the organization. Therefore it would have to be strictly voluntary. In the West they have a practice of "docking pay", here in the Philippines it is still quite illegal.

I'm tempted to do a Pilate, but it is also a leader's job to deliver judgment. In this case, I'll be suspending one of my boys. I don't think anybody wins.