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What one person considers bad behaviour may just roll off another, or be ignored. Bad behaviour is largely defined by the recipient, mostly.

That’s so unfortunate in a world, and a time, where we are trying to foster increased respect and civility but, at the same time, around us we are subjected to increasingly foot stomping tantrum-like behaviour of adult bullies. Poor behaviour can seem so black and white to the recipients, but what happens when no action is taken? The additional collateral damage of ignoring adults behaving badly can be significant, building resentments against more than just the perpetrator and destroying overall morale and productivity. It’s the grey shades that represent the impacts that are frequently overlooked.

It’s frustrating when there is no resolution for someone who repeatedly neglects duties, abuses others, and works the system to such an extent that there is no effective resolution; when you see someone so badly impacted by the ongoing antics that you know they are going to move on while the perpetrator hangs on like a leech, revelling in the damage they wreak…and you can’t do a thing to help because no one is willing to address the problem in any functional manner.

It’s fascinating how you can respect the underlying knowledge that someone can have, if only they would use it beneficially, and yet have little respect whatsoever for the person, or for the system that allows the problem to fester.

But it really sucks to watch a narcissistic bully abuse others and get away with it. I suppose sometimes the fact that most everyone recognizes the behaviour for what it is has to be enough, because that’s the only satisfaction you’re going to get.

How Organizations Enable Bad Behavior

Published on October 19, 2015

All organizations end up at one time or another dealing with a difficult employee. Typically these employees are not performance issues but behavior issues. In many cases they are high performers but, while the work is getting done, their bad behavior has a direct negative impact on their co-workers. These employees can impact productivity, employee morale and have an impact on the entire organizational culture.

Even with the best screening methods some difficult employees will slip through the cracks leaving companies to deal (or not deal) with them. The question in the minds of employees is not how they got here but why do we keep them? Not only are many organizations slow to identify and deal with toxic employees but they oftentimes through their practices, they end up enabling those employees and give them even more power to wreak havoc on the company.

For the rest of us left to deal with the repercussions we repeatedly ask ourselves, how does this happen and why are they still here? Managers have become adept at avoiding, justifying or excusing bad behavior through their management practices. In simple form, they just don’t want to be bothered with it. While this may work for them, it isn’t working for the co-workers left to deal with toxic behavior.

To answer the question of how this happens and why they stay is because, through management practices, not only do we dismiss difficult behavior but we actually enable it allowing it to take root in our culture, flourish and grow.

Below are 10 common ways that management and organizations enable difficult employees:

1. By dismissing the behavior – People love to excuse bad behavior by saying, “Oh that is just John”. When we do that, we allow difficult personalities to grow and flourish. We not only do the difficult employee a disservice by not coaching them, but we do a disservice to our high performers by not holding others accountable.
2. By making excuses – “Jane is going through a tough time right now, let’s give her some time”. While I certainly have compassion for people going through tough circumstances, the reality is that we are all fighting some kind of battle. Regardless, we do not have the right to treat others badly. When we allow someone to excuse their bad behavior, we send the message that there are times when it is okay to treat others poorly.
3. By qualifying – “Lisa is a nice person, but…” Somehow it eases our conscience if we present a complaint with a disclaimer. My response to this statement (which I hear often) is, “No, Lisa is not a nice person. At times she acts nice, but nice people don’t treat others that way.” Everyone does nice things, some of us do nice things consistently, but this does not give someone a pass to behave badly at work (or anywhere).
4. By ignoring the behavior – Most of us don’t love conflict. While some of us are better at it than others, very few people embrace and seek out conflict. When someone is being a difficult person, it feels easier to just ignore it. To hope it will go away or to wait quietly for the employee to quit. Ignoring bad behavior only allows it to fester and grow.
5. By being too busy – How many times in the course of your day do you hear people say they are too busy to do something. Being too busy has become a catch all excuse for why we “can’t” do things that need to get done. Being too busy, like ignoring the behavior, enables the employee to continue acting out. Managers don’t like to document behavior because this takes time and effort. If they spend their time documenting and coaching employees, this takes away from their ability to perform their job – but wait that IS their job.
6. By valuing performance over behavior – Performance is an important aspect of the job, but to place importance of performance over behavior sends a dangerous message to your employees. Who you are as you get the job done, is equally important (if not more so) to culture as getting the job done. When you value performance over behavior, you may be allowing one employee to shine while others are being trampled in the wake.
7. By coaching the “victims” – Instead of dealing with the difficult employee’s behavior, we coach those impacted by the behavior on how they can better deal with it. While it is true that we only have control over ourselves, when we ask those impacted by difficult coworkers to adjust their behavior, we send the wrong message. We should never expect employees to modify their actions so we don’t have to coach the real problem.
8. By not seeing it – Difficult employees generally have fairly decent relationships with their bosses. They know how to manage up and keep their behavior in check with the right people. A manager can choose to have a selective perspective on the employee by using their interactions as a guide. This provides a very myopic view and when managers don’t take the time to investigate interactions outside of themselves, they will miss a valuable opportunity to witness a difficult employee in action.
9. By putting our peace of mind first – Let’s face it, who wants to go into work and confront someone on their bad behavior. It is easier to avoid it, and hope that the problem will just go away. When we avoid dealing with difficult employees, the other employees will lose faith in us and stop bringing the bad behavior to their manager’s attention. This may allow the manager to fall into a false sense of resolution. They aren’t hearing about it, therefore it must not be happening. Meanwhile the employees who stopped talking to their manager about it are now either talking to each other about it or looking for a new job.
10. By allowing fear to guide decisions – When I work with managers to coach difficult employees, I often hear some fear based decision making. They either fear being sued, being retaliated against or fear that the work won’t get done. They worry that the employee has institutional knowledge that they will lose when the employee leaves or fear that the difficult employee will take valuable clients and customers with them or they fear how long it will take to backfill the position. Typically difficult employees are very savvy. They know what is going on and allowing them to hold you hostage to keeping them only prolongs the inevitable.

Being a manager isn’t only about have a title or level of influence, it is about aligning and inspiring people to bring their best self to work. When our management practices enable difficult employees to remain actively destructive in the organization, there is little alignment or inspiration going on. Organizations need to set clear expectations for both performance and behavior and then they must consistently manage to those expectations.

Susan Ways is an HR Executive, author, speaker, and HR thought leader. For more information visit www.inspiredsuccesscoaching.com