Shannon Gabriel is Vice President of Leadership Solutions at TBM Consulting, a global operations and supply chain consulting firm.
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I'm sure many of us have that one relative who makes family gatherings uncomfortable. Even if they're not actively cruel, their attitude, ego or abrasiveness often creates tension and makes everyone feel awkward. However, because they’re family, the behavior is tolerated, jeopardizing everyone else's comfort.
Well, the modern workplace can be full of unsavory "relatives," like supposed leaders engaging in that same inconsiderate or egotistical behavior and dragging down the overall culture, productivity and competitive edge of the organization. As an HR leader, if you’re letting them get away with it because that's “just how they are,” you’re unfortunately a part of the problem.
One Bad Apple
We hear a lot about toxic behavior and its impact on company culture, but many leaders don’t realize how broad that impact can be on business performance. As a consultant, I’ve met with several organizations struggling to figure out what’s driving productivity down and turnover up. They claim to have looked everywhere, including bottlenecks on the assembly line, breakdowns in processes or general labor inefficiency. But the real problem often stems from the individuals—including leaders—who are creating a negative culture.
When companies tolerate bad behavior, it sets the tone for the entire organization. Other employees figure out behavioral standards are subjective, and they determine there’s no point in reporting the behavior if nothing will be done to address it. So for many, it’s easier to leave. MIT Sloan Management Review found toxic culture "is by far the strongest predictor of industry-adjusted attrition and is 10 times more important than compensation in predicting turnover."
4 Signs Of A Hidden Toxic Culture
The signs of a problematic workplace aren’t always obvious. There may not be open disagreements, and anonymous employee surveys may not outright indicate a culture problem. But that could mean employees don't feel comfortable disclosing their honest feedback for fear of retaliation.
If you believe your organization has done everything to bolster productivity, performance and stability but hasn't seen improvement, there may be a culture problem. Here are four areas you should give a closer look.
1. Turnover: Tracking turnover data by department and supervisor level can help identify whether problems are prevalent across the organization or if there’s a specific area with a disproportionate number of quits.
2. Absenteeism: While it’s not always an employee-driven issue, when people feel frustrated with a co-worker or supervisor, they may do everything to avoid coming to work. Analyzing absenteeism by department, supervisor and reason given can shed light on existing problems.
3. Productivity: When people dread coming to work, it will be reflected in their lack of motivation and lackadaisical performance.
4. Behaviors: You can often get a sense of a department's mood just by analyzing the energy. Look at body language and facial expressions, collaboration attempts and group dynamics. Do people seem to be happy and cooperating, or do they look miserable and afraid to speak up?
If you’ve identified a certain person as the problem, it’s essential that you deal with it immediately—especially if they're in a managerial position. Whether it’s through conversations, targeted training, reassignment or dismissal, acting is necessary to solve the problem and send the message that bad behavior is not tolerated at your organization.
3 Steps For Course Correction
While the immediate issue may have come from a singular team member, it’s important to acknowledge and address the system and culture that allowed it to happen in the first place. There are a few essential steps to help you reevaluate, strengthen and sustain your organization's culture.
Promote the right people.
Organizations tend to promote the highest-performing talent, regardless of their actual leadership ability. You need to evaluate both technical skill and aptitude for leading when deciding whether to promote an employee into a management role.
Train early and often.
Giving new leaders one day of orientation before turning them loose isn't effective. They need continuous training in skills like interpersonal communication, how to motivate teams or discipline behavior and conflict resolution. After all, even Tom Brady would need mentoring to become the next Bill Belichick.
It's key to start training team members with leadership potential before they take the role so they can grow confident in their ability to use the skills needed to lead others. Then, continue to train those leaders through the end of their tenure with your organization. By doing so, you’ll ensure proper leadership practices never take a backseat in your organization, thus preventing larger issues down the line.
Set the tone from the top.
Employees model the behavior they see in leaders, so upper management must hold themselves accountable to the same standards they expect to see in their teams. I’ve worked with a manager struggling with high turnover. The company, which was largely successful, couldn’t figure out what was wrong with its culture. It turned out the manager was a large part of the problem. She told new hires she didn’t care to learn their names until they’d been with the organization for four weeks, setting the tone that they were disposable. To drive cultural change, management must model behavior, which includes not tolerating bad behavior. This will help show what will and won’t be tolerated.
In his book Atomic Habits, author James Clear writes, “You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.” Managing workplace culture is no exception. Your culture, no matter what you aspire for it to be, will always be dragged down to the team’s behavioral denominator. Just like those unsavory relatives, leaders cannot—and should not—allow the behaviors of a certain few to hijack the culture for all.
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