Passive-aggressive behaviors undermine the team
Gene Mage
At the meeting everyone seems to agree, communicating to you both verbally and non-verbally that they fully support your project. After some discussion, and small modifications, the project is approved.
Walking down the hall the next day on your way to the coffee machine you run into your co-worker Carl, who takes you aside and says, “I don’t think Theresa is really on board with this program.”
“I just talked to her. We just had a meeting. What’s going on?” you retort.
Carl continues, “Well, I don’t know what happened, but she was just complaining that your project is never going to work, and that she is not going to devote any resources to it.”
This passive aggressive behavior, or putting on a phony friendly face of agreement in the midst of an open discussion while secretly harboring resentment or disagreement, undermines the ability of a team to function.
Let’s examine the root causes for this behavior pattern, the consequences of passive-aggressive behavior, and some ways we can stop it from happening.
There are three key root causes of passive-aggressive behavior.
Beliefs about what works. Passive-aggressive employees believe that dealing with disagreements behinds the scenes works better than open dialog. They have observed that this approach works better, and they simply do what works.
Cultural norms about “harmony”. For many people, due to their upbringing and life history, the idea of confrontation or expressing disagreement is highly distasteful, if not downright wrong. We are told growing up to get along, be team players, and play nice. When we get into the workplace we have a hard time reconciling the business need to express what we really think with the prerogative to maintain harmony.
Lack of communications skills. Most people are never taught how to express disagreement in a constructive way. Lacking the skills to openly deal with issues, the passive-aggressive employee avoids confrontation, preferring the “safer” route of backroom dealing.
The consequences of a passive-aggressive workplace can be tragic, and include the following.
Poor decision making. Harmony is a good thing as long as it doesn’t lead to stupidity. Recall the space shuttle Challenger disaster. Morton Thiokol managers and their NASA counterparts were unwilling to make the “no-go” decision that really needed to be made. Nobody wants to upset the boss or the client, but better upset than dead.
Toxic work environment. As individuals try to get things done behind the scenes, the work environment becomes increasingly opaque and communications increasingly vague. Eventually you never know where people really stand.
Silos: You can always tell an organization with silos when you call their customer service department and have to keep giving the same information over and over. In an environment of discord and distrust, we hoard information rather than share it.
Toxic Stress: Individuals who are unwilling or unable to speak up about how they are feeling keep their emotions inside. Those emotions eventually come out either in an outward explosion of inappropriate anger, or an inward implosion of toxic stress.
We can overcome passive-aggressive behaviors in the workplace by exercising our influence as leaders in two critical ways.
Encourage healthy conflict. As leaders, we need to create a conflict-tolerant culture. We need to recognize the difference between healthy conflict and toxic conflict. Healthy conflict is always welcome. It is “OK” to disagree, or even for the conversation to get heated once in a while, but we all remain friends once the conversation is over. We encourage, reward, and recognize good performers who have the courage to speak their minds openly.
Exercise personal integrity. We need to make a choice as leaders to establish a personal value around openness. We need to keep our agreements not only face to face, but behind other’s backs. When we have concerns, we need to air our disagreements within the team. When we leave the meeting room, we need to support the consensus.
Syndicated columnist Gene C. Mage is author of the book Managing for High Performance. To contact Gene, visit www.makingitwork.com.