Five Tips to Manage Bad Attitudes
Negative attitudes are malignant and can harm even the strongest cultures. Inevitably, you may encounter a team member who struggles with rudeness, reactionary behaviors, careless work, tardiness, gossiping, and backbiting. Unfortunately, it only takes one bad apple to ruin the bunch. According to USC, the effects of negativity can cost organizations close to $3 Billion annually in reduced performance.
Identifying Disruptive Actions
HBR calls out the following as the top toxic traits:
- Generates unnecessary drama and distractions by consistently diminishing positive and creative energy from others, displaying cynicism and a lack of support.
- Reduce stakeholder confidence by causing others outside the team to view your work with the team negatively.
- Undermine leadership efforts to develop a confident, hardworking, collaborative team.
- Degrade team culture by normalizing their destructive behaviors and expecting others to put up with them.
Addressing Hidden Behaviors
Sometimes, bad attitudes are difficult to spot. The best way to determine whether your team is dealing with less overt negative attitudes is to ask for feedback. This can be done through consistent, brief, anonymous surveys that gather valuable information and help identify early warning signs.
Don’t stop at uncovering there’s a problem. In circumstances where negativity hinders team performance, reduces collaboration, or makes others uncomfortable, act quickly and take people’s feedback seriously.
Dealing with Bad Attitudes
- Lead by example: According to HRDQ, this concept refers to the “shadow of a leader,” which refers to a leader’s impact on their team through their words, actions, and unconscious influence.
- Be an active listener: This means paying attention to the clear and unspoken information you receive in a conversation. Always make eye contact, don’t interrupt, stay focused, and show that you’re listening.
- Coach for influence: A developmental approach that prioritizes a team member’s interests and helps them grow and develop their skills. Well-coached teams have clear goals & objectives, collaborate effectively, communicate well, and exhibit mutual trust.
- Say goodbye: It’s never easy to lose a team member, even one with a bad attitude, but if you have asked for feedback, acknowledged their issues, created a personal development plan, clarified their impact, and tried to coach them with no success, it’s time to either redirect them to a team where they can be successful or acknowledge that the current organization is not a good fit and it’s time for them to move on.
- Build a people-first culture: This is an excellent way to establish trust, increase worker satisfaction, and positively impact team members. It prioritizes volunteers and staff over those you serve and is a sure way to achieve outstanding service levels, committed people, and overall success.
If left unchecked, bad attitudes can be detrimental to your team. Without improvement, you may experience low morale, frustration, high turnover, and even a dip in productivity. By addressing bad attitudes, your team will appreciate the effort and willingness to resolve the issues.
Click here to learn more about the benefits of using secure children’s and youth check-in to help manage your children’s area, keep families smiling, and improve safety. You can also subscribe to the KidCheck blog or connect with us on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram.
Sources:
HRDQ https://hrdqstore.com/blogs/hrdq-blog/mastering-leadership-shadow-steps
https://appliedpsychologydegree.usc.edu/blog
https://www.healthassured.org/blog/negative-attitude-at-work/
https://hbr.org/2018/04/4-ways-to-deal-with-a-toxic-coworker