Measuring the Unmeasurable: How to Assess Disruptive Behavior in Your Workplace
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When it comes to human behavior (especially predicting and managing it), professionals in the field talk about "measuring the unmeasurable."
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.
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. Good interpersonal relationships are key to great leaderhsip. 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 disruptive behavior with our "Abrasive Leader Diagnostic," a free survey that we provide to 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 consistently disruptive behaviors before they get destructive—in your leaders and throughout your workplace.
1. Consider the types of behavior to measure. Some of the following behaviors may seem minor, but don't 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. 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.
The first step in making change? Diagnosing the problem, and this unique tool 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.
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.