Welcome to this episode of Jack Chat and another tiny lesson in leadership, straight up.
In this episode, I’m going to address an uncomfortable subject… team bullies.
We’ve all had to work with people who weren’t our favorite. The fact of the matter is we don’t often get to choose our teammates. It’s normal to move from team to team throughout our careers, experiencing different people. This is why it’s so important to develop interpersonal skills to work with a variety of personalities and styles.
But, there is one type no one should ever be expected to work with on a team. The bully.
The term bully probably brings to mind the classic schoolyard bully – someone who knocks you off your bike and steals your lunch.
While some bullying behavior can be crudely overt in the workplace, it most often shows up in far more sophisticated and subtle ways. As a leader, you should be prepared to recognize and address this divisive, unhealthy behavior before it kills team performance!
To help you see the more subtle forms of bullying, ask yourself:
Does a person on the team…
- Withhold information from other team members?
- Manipulate outcomes by using passive tactics such as withdrawing from discussions?
- Criticize the work of other team members behind their back?
- Control team culture with a persistently negative attitude?
Give those questions some thought, get serious about addressing unhealthy team behaviors… and join me again for another chat!