When you find yourself on the receiving end of conflict at work

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When you find yourself on the receiving end of conflict at work

In the heat of a tough conversation that hooks us (or the other guy) emotionally, those emotions can get the better of us. Our egos get slapped around, our precious values are attacked, even our personal safety can feel threatened. 

The truth is that conflict is natural. When two or more people, or groups of people, are not meeting each other’s needs, conflict can arise. When managed well, the conflict can become a productive, creative exchange that brings out something new, collaborative and wonderful—positive conflict.

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Measuring the Unmeasurable: How to Assess Disruptive Behavior in Your Workplace

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Measuring the Unmeasurable: How to Assess Disruptive Behavior in Your Workplace

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. The cost to a leadership team that ignores—or accepts—abrasive behaviors is high.

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Bad behavior at work: when do you step in?

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Bad behavior at work: when do you step in?

If you are a CEO, manager, HR professional, or business coach, please read on….

According to the Society of Resource Management (SHRM), 87% of employees say that workplace incivility has negatively affected their performance.

So, at this moment you can safely assume that one or more employees in your organization are on the receiving end of bad behavior — not only negatively affecting their performance, but also their morale and emotional and physical health.

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What to Do When Abrasive Behavior Enters your Organization

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What to Do When Abrasive Behavior Enters your Organization

[Excerpted from International Ombudsman Association (IOA) article by Mark Batson Baril, Dec. 21, 2020. Read the full article here:  “What to Do When Abrasive Behavior Enters Your Organization,”]

In my work as a Conflict Resolver, Mediator and Ombuds, I have encountered 17 situations to date that have involved a leader with an abrasive leadership style. It’s been hard for me to admit, but it took eight of those cases over several years before I really understood what was going on — and what to do about it. 

In most of those cases the teams and organizations worked toward agreements that more or less stuck and the team’s performance improved. Yet, lurking beneath those changes was the abrasive behavior of the leader/individual that had not changed, so had not been addressed in a substantial way.

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Can This Partnership Be Saved?

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Can This Partnership Be Saved?

The cofounder team of six people were all best friends. They threw in all their money and joined together to start this coffee/bakery business in Nevada. They had a really good go in the first couple of years – customer base growing steadily, lots of popularity and people coming into the business interested in what they were doing because of their unique products.  

At some point a few years in, they started having disagreements about how things were getting done, who was working the hardest, who was being paid fairly, and who was accountable for which responsibilities. All while the business was in the middle of growing pains.

They called me in as a coach and we did some team coaching. In my process we did interviews and surveys with everyone at the bakery as well as outside stakeholders. 

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Ted Lasso's tips on handling tough conversations

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Ted Lasso's tips on handling tough conversations

In the heat of a tough conversation (or person) that hooks us emotionally, those emotions can get the better of us and our tender egos can feel slapped around. 

Tough conversations are inevitable in the workplace and particularly sticky when they involve a superior or, even stickier, a boss who’s chronically difficult. 

These are the very moments when you want to keep your emotions and ego in check if you have any hope of achieving the outcomes you’re looking for in the conversation. 

So, how do you do that? We look to America's favorite lovable leader, Ted Lasso, for advice…

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What's behind the leader who behaves badly at work

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What's behind the leader who behaves badly at work

For professionals responsible for a productive, engaged, harmonious workplace, it’s crucial to know what will be disruptive to that environment. Especially when the culprit could likely be a leader in the company.

What do we need to know, and do, about leaders who are regularly behaving badly and harming everyone in their orbit?

Let's get to know these folks, and what may be behind that behavior...

“Abrasive leaders become winners…”

First off, we know that abrasive leaders aren’t lacking in ability. Often it's their technical competence that led to their rise to management. It's this competence that often has management, fellow leaders, and stakeholders choosing to ignore the behavior—even as it continues to poison the workplace.


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When the abrasive leader is THE leader (If I knew then what I know now)

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When the abrasive leader is THE leader (If I knew then what I know now)

As a conflict advisor I worked with a large nonprofit organization over several years with mediation and consulting work around conflict within their various departments.

I began hearing through the grapevine that this particular person we’ll call Marie was a very, very difficult person to work for. 

At first I thought they had to be talking about someone else! I’d met Marie, and heard a lot of folks in that community talk about how brilliant she was and one of the most likable and charismatic people you’d ever want to meet. 

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When to Get Help for Workplace Disputes or Conflict

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When to Get Help for Workplace Disputes or Conflict

An organization, no matter what size, can find itself facing a conflict so entrenched, so ugly, that a key person is paralyzing the productivity of an entire group, a department is chronically unable to come up with a new idea, or leadership is in such disarray that partners aren’t speaking to each other and some are ready to walk.

Underneath almost every negative conflict are interpersonal relationships that are rubbing each other the wrong way. When emotions run high (especially fueled by fear or anxiety) people can dig their heels into their position and block their ears to anyone who tries to reason logically with them.

Mediators are specially trained to work with teams in these situations. They understand relationship dynamics in play and how emotions can run amok.  

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Bad Behavior at Work: You know you should do something

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Bad Behavior at Work: You know you should do something

“You know you should do something about Chris, but you’re not sure what. You just received another complaint about his abrasive behavior. This isn’t the only complaint—they’ve been adding up. You haven’t done anything yet—you’ve been busy…You’ve been waiting to see if things would improve on their own. They haven’t.”(1)

If you’re wondering when to cross that line and do something, please consider this: Employees rarely report the suffering they experience from bosses or managers who bully them. Read this to learn why this is true. If it has gone so far that you're receiving more than one complaint, err on the side of believing that the effect of the behavior is more damaging than you think, to have brought these people forward to report it. 

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What if your employees are afraid to speak out?

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What if your employees are afraid to speak out?

"See something, say something" or "Snitches get stitches?" headlines the 2023 Ethical Culture Report, recently released by Ethisphere Institute. The standout for me from this analysis of global trends in org culture was about unethical behavior in the workplace and how, or if, employees are reporting it.

What struck me is that even though employees responded that they were willing to report misconduct when they saw it, only about half of them actually did so.

Why do they make the choice not to report misconduct?

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Call out unnecessary roughness in your workplace

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Call out unnecessary roughness in your workplace

At some point in your work life you may have witnessed an employee who had an overly aggressive management style that caused friction and conflict with everyone around them.

More often than not, this kind of behavior is swept under the rug, tolerated, or “forgiven” because the person is in a leadership position or they’re perceived to have so much value to the company that it’s “worth” the behavior. 

Let’s throw a flag on this play and call it what it really is: Bullying — no matter who does it, no matter how it’s done. It’s unnecessary and unacceptable as a leadership style.

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The Day I Quit My Job: The story of a bully boss

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The Day I Quit My Job: The story of a bully boss

When I was in my mid-20s, I moved to New England to work as a shop manager for a construction company. A family business of about 40 employees, I worked directly for the owner, Jack. 

I remember like it was yesterday the very first day I arrived at work. Parking my truck and turning the corner toward the building, I heard before seeing my new boss screaming at the top of his lungs at a woman, who I learned later was a sister who worked for him. I really thought they were going to come to blows, but she seemed to be beaming right back at him, so I made myself as invisible as possible and continued on my way into the office.

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What is the thorniest issue that keeps your employees up at night?

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What is the thorniest issue that keeps your employees up at night?

In the top 3 of any list ranking the most common workplace issues, you will see “interpersonal conflict” or “bullying and harassment”—not pay, not recognition, not opportunities for promotion... 

“The accelerated pace of change in today’s workplace and in our overall society is one more factor impacting workplace mental health.” [Source: SHRM]  

It’s no surprise that the most common workplace issues on almost every survey list are not about pay, promotion, or benefits. We see that interpersonal conflict, bullying and harassment, communication and relationship problems consistently top these lists.

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Kick Off 2023 With Strong Team Agreements

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Kick Off 2023 With Strong Team Agreements

As team lead, manager, or head of your organization, you want to ensure that your teams are cohesive, collaborative, high performing, and strong enough to weather any stormy seas of conflict, crisis, and disruptive behaviors.

This is the stuff of team agreements.

What I sometimes hear from folks is, "Sure, yeah, of course our teams have agreements. Everybody's on the same page." What turns out to be true is that their team agreements are unspoken, unwritten and un-negotiated—meaning, not designed in any thoughtful or clear manner that will set the team up for success.

They are informal agreements that have become the rules of behavior over time and morphed into the organizational culture. They become "the way things are done around here."

For better or worse, they are binding on team members. They may not be spelled out in the policies and procedures manual (or even ethical or legal...), but it doesn't take long for new team members to figure out what is rewarded and what is punished. The so-called agreements continue as the norm, and nobody questions if they're good for the team, the workforce, or the organization.


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What's Behind the "Bully Boss"?

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What's Behind the "Bully Boss"?

According to research from the Boss Whispering Institute and others, often the leader who exhibits abrasive behavior doesn’t intend to do harm to others. They don’t lie awake at night plotting ways to make their coworkers miserable. They often don’t even see that their behavior is having a negative impact on their coworkers’ emotions or morale -- ‘It’s nothing personal, it’s just business. We're getting a job done here.’

Underneath the surface of disrespectful, unacceptable behavior, these leaders are not unlike you and me. They feel stress, anxiety, and uncertainty about their future the same way most of us do. Moreover, as leaders they have a spotlight bearing down on them -- when things go wrong it’s the leader who takes responsibility. They don’t want to be seen as incompetent, they may feel threatened and fear failure.

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Emotional abuse at work: 8 warning signs that there’s a problem

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Emotional abuse at work: 8 warning signs that there’s a problem

“The accelerated pace of change in today’s workplace and in our overall society is one more factor impacting workplace mental health.” [Source: SHRM]

It’s no surprise that the most common workplace issues on almost every survey list are not about pay, promotion, or benefits. We see that interpersonal conflict, bullying and harassment, communication and relationship problems consistently top these lists.

Recent statistics show that [Source: 2021 WBI U.S. Workplace Bullying Survey]:

  • 30% of adults are bullied at work (compared to 19% in 2017)

  • 43.2% of remote workers are bullied

  • 65% of bullies are bosses; 4% have admitted their bullying which represents 6.6 million individuals

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Why Abrasive Leaders Become "Winners Who Become Losers"

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Why Abrasive Leaders Become "Winners Who Become Losers"

It’s natural to make (negative) assumptions about the type of bosses and leaders who make our lives miserable at work—even including terms like “evil,” “a monster” or “insane.”

For professionals who are in the business of working toward a harmonious, engaged, productive, innovative workforce, it’s instructive if not crucial to unpack the package that is called the “abrasive leader.”


“Abrasive leaders become winners…”

First off, we know that abrasive leaders aren’t lacking in ability. In fact, it’s often their technical competence that led to their rise to management. Their skills in their field are rarely brought into question, and in many cases, it’s this competence that has management, leadership, and stakeholders often choosing to ignore the behavior—as it continues to poison the entire organization.

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How to Have Difficult Conversations (Rudeness and Lies): Part 2

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How to Have Difficult Conversations (Rudeness and Lies): Part 2

“'Honesty' in social life is often used as a cover for rudeness. But there is quite a difference between being candid in what you're talking about, and people voicing their insulting opinions under the name of honesty,” said Judith Martin aka Miss Manners in 2011. The First Lady of Etiquette was being interviewed about her years as a journalist.

Her nugget of wisdom still feels relevant today – maybe more so in an era of social-media bashing and bullying.

This has me thinking about honesty’s place in the work environment, so here are some thoughts in the second in our series of spotlighting difficult conversations— the kind that raise hackles, taint relationships and spark unproductive conflict—and how to address them.

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Why you may be blind to bad behavior at work and the harm it is causing

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Why you may be blind to bad behavior at work and the harm it is causing

As leaders, we hold the responsibility of ensuring our workplaces are safe, healthy environments for our workers. We want our employees to be happy and productive. Does any management team sit around the boardroom table and pull up the powerpoint, “How can we perpetuate workplace bullying?”

Of course not! Except…that’s exactly what we’re doing when we accept the myths about leadership that blind us to the damage that abrasive behavior is doing to our workers and our company. It’s more comfortable to accept these myths as explanations than it is to initiate the difficult conversations that must be had.

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