What are you tolerating?

You’re probably reading that headline and thinking, “As if!” “As if I would choose to encourage poor behaviour.” But some people do.

In this series of articles, I’ve been using the acronym, EMIT, to describe the root cause of many poor behaviours in the workplace. The first three articles were concerned with the unconscious ways we, as leaders, are responsible for surfacing poor behaviour among our staff.  

First we looked at how we might Enable poor behaviour by the way we respond to or deal with incidents. Next we looked at the behaviour we Model that encourages others to emulate us. And then we looked at Ignorance – being completely in the dark and unaware of poor behaviour until it’s brought to our attention.  

Today’s article looks at a conscious behaviour that begets poor behaviour.  

T is for TOLERATE

Most people have enough awareness to recognize poor behaviour. The thing is, whether or not you choose to do anything about it, once you’ve recognized it. If you see it or are aware of it and do nothing about it, you are choosing to tolerate it.

But at what cost?

The price you pay for tolerating poor behaviour is a massive loss of respect; loss of respect from your staff, from your peers, from your superiors (if you have them) and even from your customers and suppliers.  

You see, if you’re aware of the poor behaviour, so is pretty much everyone else. In fact, they’re usually sick to the back teeth of the behaviour. Every time it surfaces, they wonder why on earth you don’t do something about it. You’re the boss, after all – it’s your responsibility in their eyes.  

The fact that you choose not to, gives everyone else cause to doubt your leadership. Thoughts like “too weak to act”, “too gutless to do anything about it”, “I wonder what power she has over him”, “how can he be so stupid”, among others, run rampant.  And why wouldn’t they? You ARE the boss. It IS your responsibility. Everyone looks to you to take action.

Let’s take the example of Nick who knew that his 2IC, Bevan, was cutting, tactless and bordering on being a bully to the rest of the staff. He’d send terse emails, ignore people he didn’t want to speak to, cut people off mid-sentence, roll his eyes at their ideas etc. But Bevan kept getting away with it.  Several people had brought the behaviour to Nick’s attention but nothing changed. Bevan continued to run roughshod over everyone.  

During my coaching sessions with Nick, he acknowledged the problem but when I challenged him around when he was going to have the tough conversation, his standard reply was, “sometime next week – I have to wait for the right opportunity.”

As you can probably guess, the right opportunity never seemed to present itself.  

So why would Nick (or anyone else for that matter) choose to tolerate behaviour like Bevan’s?  

More often than not, behaviour like Bevan’s is tolerated because the leader doesn’t want a “confrontation.” They’re conflict averse, they fear the instigator will turn nasty, they’re concerned it will escalate and they worry that they won’t handle it well or will say something they later regret.  

In some instances, people tolerate poor behaviour because they couldn’t care less about it. But of course, they fail to factor in the knock-on effect of such behaviour.  

In every case, in my experience, where the leader has finally found his or her voice and had the necessary conversation, however it went, the rest of the staff breathed a collective sigh of relief. “Finally, he’s done something about it!”   

Sure, there might be some unpleasantness. It might not go as well as you’d hoped, but you’ve drawn the line in the sand and you’ve taken your power back. And with that decision you regain the respect of your staff and colleagues.  

If you’ve experienced a boss or a colleague who chose to tolerate poor behaviour, or if you’re in a leadership position and are aware of poor behaviour but are choosing to tolerate it, please share your story with us in the comment box.  

Having that honest conversation is not easy, but the price you pay by not having it is far more damaging.