We’ve all experienced toxic players in our organizations. Whether those toxic people are leaders or team members, their self-serving behaviors erode trust, respect, and dignity in every interaction.
Two studies have found that toxic workers also cost organizations money—and, when tolerated and allowed to continue behaving badly, toxic employees cause coworkers to behave badly, as well.
A 2016 study by Harvard Business School found that a company loses more than $12,000 in costs when replacing a toxic worker—more than double the $5,000 a superstar adds to the company’s bottom line (Hazard Warning: The Unacceptable Cost of Toxic Workers).
A 2018 study detailed in the Harvard Business Review found that even honest employees are more likely to commit misconduct if they work alongside a dishonest co-worker. Researchers found that financial advisors are 37 percent more likely to commit misconduct if they encounter a co-worker with a history of misconduct (Research: How One Bad Employee Can Corrupt a Whole Team).
Why is toxic behavior tolerated in organizations? My research has found two primary drivers:
- First, most leaders see their jobs as managing results. If all a leader focuses on is output, people may behave badly to deliver.
- Second, most leaders aren’t comfortable engaging in coaching conversations about toxic behavior.
Train Leaders to Make Values—and Workplace Sanity—as Important as Results
Managing results is certainly important. Leaders are measured, monitored, and rewarded for generating expected results from their teams.
However, managing results is exactly half the leader’s job. The other half? Managing values—how people treat each other at work.
When faced with details of employee misconduct—cheating, withholding information, poaching customers, demeaning treatment of colleagues, bullying, or sexual harassment—many leaders’ initial reaction is of shock. They say, “I had no idea.” Why? Because they’re not paying attention to the quality of workplace relationships. All they measure, monitor, and reward is results.
To make values as important as results, leaders must create clear expectations for civil interactions—defining how people must interact with others at work. By formalizing values in behavioral terms, there is no question what is expected of “great team citizens.”
Train Leaders to Create Ground Rules for Their Team
Ground rules or team norms help clarify how great citizens behave—in every interaction. Sample ground rules include:
- I engage everyone in a respectful manner.
- I do not act or speak rudely or discount others.
- I am honest and do what I say I will do.
- I celebrate success.
These behaviors define how leaders expect everyone on their team to treat others—with civility and respect.
Train Leaders to Actively Coach and Mentor Team Members
Defining and announcing ground rules won’t, unfortunately, fix toxic employees. Only when leaders model, coach, and hold everyone accountable for these behaviors will toxic behavior be eliminated.
Leaders must learn skills of communicating these expectations frequently, both in a team setting and with individual team members. They must open themselves up to feedback from their team members, learning how team members see the leader’s behavior, how well the leader models the ground rules, and even how well the leader coaches—praising aligned behavior and redirecting misaligned behavior.
Praise and encouragement seems like it should be easy, but TinyPulse’s 2018 employee engagement report found that 77 percent of employees don’t feel strongly valued at work (The Effects of Employee Recognition and Appreciation). So praising doesn’t happen frequently. Leaders must be trained to not only SEE aligned behavior but to validate it promptly.
Leaders are uncomfortable directly addressing toxic behavior. They must be trained in how to engage team members to discuss the behavior they observed, the negative impact of the behavior, and state that the behavior must stop.
And leaders must be trained to follow through—to create a plan for the toxic player to embrace positive ground rules, to monitor the toxic player’s progress, to praise aligned behavior, and to continue to redirect misaligned behavior.
Practicing these challenging conversations is the only way leaders will build skills and confidence to proactively address toxic behavior.
When leaders proactively set values ground rules and hold everyone accountable for aligned behavior, trust and respect increase. That leads to higher engagement (gains of 40 percent or more), better customer service (increases of 40 percent or more), and—not surprisingly—better results (by 35 percent or more). I can prove it (Positive Proof that Culture Works – Purposeful Culture Group).
Toxic behavior won’t go away if you ignore it. Set clear ground rules, then model them, coach them, and praise them when you see others modeling them.
For more than 28 years, S. Chris Edmonds has helped senior leaders create purposeful, positive, productive work cultures. He is a speaker, author, and executive consultant who is the founder of The Purposeful Culture Group. He’s one of Inc. Magazine’s 100 Top Leadership Speakers, and was a featured presenter at South by Southwest. Edmonds is the author of Amazon bestseller The Culture Engine and five other books. He tweets on organizational culture, servant leadership, and workplace inspiration at @scedmonds. His Culture Leadership Charge video episodes can be found on YouTube at: S. Chris Edmonds – YouTube.
