June 25, 2025
C-Store Leadership Development – Coaching & Reprimands are essential skills for growing sales and controlling profits. It is critical for managers to provide honest, helpful, and clear feedback to keep their c-store operations team at top performance. It has been argued that positive feedback is essential to keep morale and teamwork strong. Experienced managers are certain that providing direct and necessary coaching to address incorrect or sub-par work is the only way to keep teams working together.
First Things First
Critical feedback does not have to be painful, embarrassing, or difficult. Leaders build teamwork by hiring, onboarding and getting to know their staff. Before someone is hired, they share the company values and approach to work and ensure selected candidates are aware and want to be part of the company culture and work. As they train and get to know the staff, they learn the plans and build a path to a successful job, and in the best case a path to a career.
Helping someone reach their goals means knowing what each person values and how the job helps them to reach their goals. Likewise, each staff member is taught the work responsibilities and expectations for customer and staff interactions. Having a path of work matched to each team members personal goals makes it clear that the work expected is the path selected for each person to achieve their goals – even when the long terms goals may not match the short-term work assignment.
Establishing Successful C-Store Operations
Establishing teams that work well together, live the brand, provide great customer service while selling and making money starts with hiring the right people. Knowing who you are in terms of value, attitude and the approach to work, makes it easier to find people that will fit into your system. Recruiting, hiring and retaining staff is easier when you know who will enjoy and thrive on your team.
Once the hiring is done, the onboarding in the first few days and weeks sets the stage for success. As part of the training and the initial period of onboarding, it is important to share the company values, demonstrate the culture and establish the accountability to a job well done. These initial days are the best time to
- Build alignment to the company vision and mission
- Establish the expectations for customer service
- Demonstrate how the team works together
- Teach the process and the operational skills
- Share success outcomes with specific goals
- Understand the personal goals of each new hire
Taking time to onboarding in a comprehensive way initiates a way to work that is good for the customers, and helps build a strong team. This alignment sets a clear path of what good work is, and provides a fair and simple approach to keep work on track.
Leadership When Things Go Wrong – Coaching and Reprimands
Inevitably there are mistakes, misunderstandings, or shortcomings that are not acceptable. When that happens, corrective action is necessary. In a store where c-store leadership is good and teamwork is aligned, the problems are not hard to address. It is simply a matter of reviewing the results and reminding ourselves of the goals. If there are skill or attitude issues, they can be improved.
According to Blanchard & Johnson in ‘The One Minute Manager”, a good environment for coaching and addressing problems (reprimands) has these four attributes:
- Awareness of how personal goals align with store goals
- Regularly scheduled goal reviews
- Frequent feedback with appreciation of desired work
- Manager focuses on behaviors and attitudes
C-Store Management – Addressing Issues
Runing a tight c-store operations demands focus in many areas. Building a strong team is the natural purpose of c-store leadership development. The benefit of a strong culture, a process to recruit and hire to fit your culture and customer experience provides the foundation for c-store managers to address all the complexities and dynamics of operating a profitable store. Every good manager credits their team for the success of the store. Reliable work and engaged teams drive store operations. It is the only way to:
- Stay Positive
- Address Theft Concerns
- Know the facts
- Establish expectations
- Allow mistakes to build higher skill and execution
- Establish a consistent set of consequences
- Address problems to keep staff on track
Learn More About C-Store Leadership Development – Coaching & Reprimands
How to Understand the Art of Accountability
A Summary of ‘The One Minute Manager” by Blanchard & Johnson