Three Ways To Diagnose Disruptive Behavior That's Hurting Your Company
/By Mark Batson Baril for Forbes Coaches Council, Nov 13, 2020
When it comes to human behavior (especially predicting and managing it), professionals in the field talk about "measuring the unmeasurable." If you've spent any time in almost any workplace, you can see how "measuring" behavior and its effects could be a thorny effort.
Most leadership assessments I've seen are based on important skills such as executing strategy, hiring, retention, succession, team and change management. However, when the rubber meets the road, it's an individual's personal characteristics and style that can make or break their success as a leader.
Skills And Systems Are Only As Good As The People Who Apply Them
My work with teams and leaders has convinced me that it's a worthy effort to assess individual styles and behaviors and their impact on achieving outcomes. Skills and systems are only useful if the leader can personally, positively motivate their people to implement them.
I have seen how a persistent pattern of disrespectful, aggressive, even bullying behavior doesn't engage, but rather drives people away from that individual and the goals they're trying to accomplish. Even more importantly, chronic unacceptable conduct can do irreparable damage to the organization, not to mention the individuals who have been so cruelly targeted. The cost to a leadership team that ignores or accepts abrasive behaviors is high.
Measuring The Unmeasurable: An Abrasive Leader Assessment Tool
Our team decided to tackle this challenge and come up with a way to diagnose abrasive behavior with our "Abrasive Leader Diagnostic," a free survey that we provide to client HR professionals, managers and organizational leaders. It's not only useful for identifying abrasive behavior in others, but finding out if leaders themselves are abrasive. The diagnostic identifies problematic behaviors through factors such as the behaviors to consider, symptoms that have been noticed or reported, and behavioral history.
These identifying factors can be built into your company policies to help you discern any chronic abrasive behavior before it becomes disruptive and destructive.
1. Consider the types of behavior to measure. Some of the following behaviors may seem minor, but do not dismiss them. If they repeat (and the tendency is to accelerate), then they become harmful to others over time:
• Intimidation through shouting, glaring or name-calling.
• Intentional ignoring or excluding; withholding information.
• Over-control/micromanagement either over the group or singling out an individual.
• Failing to keep agreements, maintain confidentiality or respect boundaries.
• Making threats; throwing or hitting objects or people.
• Any complaints about sexual harassment or discrimination.
2. Look for symptoms. Consider these warning trends to establish if the behavior is being repeated, and also to find out if they are targeting an individual, their area, or everyone around them:
• Complaints about their interactions with others, including customers.
• Employees who have asked to transfer out of the leader's area, or have left the company.
• Comments heard such as, "Don't get on her bad side," or "Watch out for him today!"
• Productivity or morale decreasing in the leader's area; an increase in employee distress or complaints.
• Potential or actual harassment that may violate company policy or ethical/legal limits.
3. Note behavioral history. Once you've noticed or received a complaint about someone's behavior based on these guidelines, keep notes of the behaviors and symptoms to identify a thread. At best, you'll find a personality conflict that can be remedied between the two parties. Concerning behavior is that which is "chronic" — either against everyone or targeting an individual — and needs immediate attention, no matter what position the leader holds in the organization. Engaging an outside professional will be helpful to intervene in the delicate situation of an otherwise valued leader.
Happily, what we find often is that the "offender" doesn't realize the effect they're having on others. Research done by The Boss Whispering Institute finds that abrasive leaders don't intentionally set out to harm employees; they just lack important social skills in communicating empathetically, influencing in a supportive way, and reading others' emotions.
Through individualized coaching, they can reach awareness of what the behavior is, how it is being perceived by others, and ways to shift their style in a positive direction.
The first step in making change? Diagnosing the problem, and the unique tool I mentioned earlier is available free to you via this direct link to take the Abrasive Leader Diagnostic.. It's an online survey designed for anyone to take, confidentially and anonymously — especially useful for HR pros, coworkers, and even for individuals who might believe THEY may be exhibiting abrasive behaviors. More information here or talk to me by scheduling a conversation here.
When we join a company, partnership or team, our expectation is that everyone involved will exhibit professional behavior toward us and each other. Instead, it’s highly possible that we may become one of the more than 60 million adults in the United States who are affected in some way by bullying behavior at work.
What kind of behaviors are we talking about? Our definition is any interpersonal behavior that causes emotional distress in others sufficient enough to impede their productivity or disrupt organizational functioning. It isn’t just a personality conflict — it’s a chronic pattern of disrespectful behavior.