Passive-Aggressives

There are a certain number of people we deal with, whether in our personal or professional lives, who deal with most situations in a passive-aggressive way. There is another segment of the population who occasionally deal with problems in a passive-aggressive way.

What do I mean by this behavior? It's passive resistance or covert obstructionism. It's behavior that consciously on unconsciously fights demands for adequate performance in work or social situations. It can be caused by people feeling they're being judged or by generally fighting authority. It's just not overt, either because the person doesn't feel he or she is free to express feelings or because the person is uncomfortable with confrontation. It can definitely get in the way of progress.

Some examples are:

1. Procrastination
2. Stubbornness
3. Sullenness
4. Inefficiency

We can't escape it. It's present in our teammates, in our employees, in our bosses, and in our families. So, what do we do?

1. First, we respectfully address it with the other individuals. How direct we are depends on the person and our relationship with them (this is tricky with bosses and may never work or even be worth trying to fix when we have no leverage). It's critical that we focus on the behavior, not the self-worth of the individual. It's not the person we are having difficulty with, it's the behavior.
2. We share our perceptions and solicit theirs. We try to understand their viewpoint and hopefully get them to see ours. We have to be willing to suspend our beliefs during the perception-gathering phase.
3. We should think about our potential role in the behavior. Are we being so heavy-handed in the relationship that the only way the person believes he or she can deal with us is to respond in a passive-aggressive way?
4. Once we have shared our thoughts, if the other person agrees that the behavior exists, we should be willing to help them as they try to fight it, perhaps by reminding them when it is occurring. If the person is a direct report at work, we can revisit the behavior as we periodically meet for our 1:1 sessions. We can also support them if they seek professional help to overcome the behavior.
5. If the person cannot see the behavior (and we still believe it exists) or acknowledges it, but is unwilling to make any behavior modifications, then we either need to learn to live with the behavior (only in personal, boss, or peer situations) or take steps to remove the person from our team or from our interactions.
6. The one thing I don't think we can afford to do, especially in a work environment, is overlook the behavior.

Passive-aggressive behavior is totally unproductive. It's our responsibility to wisely work to address the behavior so it will not impede our responsibilities.

How do you deal with passive-aggressive behavior? It is as big a problem as I appear to see it?

Our Circumstances...We Own Them

There's always a temptation, when things aren't going right, to blame someone else for our problems. If we have trouble with the boss, it must be that there's something wrong with our supervisor. If we have money problems, then it's because our taxes are too high or our pay is too low. If we lose our jobs, someone has it in for us or it's because the poor economy made it happen. We can even blame God. Why is God letting bad thing happen to us? We're good people.

I'm not really interested in playing the blame game. It doesn't necessarily matter whether any of our bad circumstances are our fault or the fault of God or other people. We may be totally innocent of anything negative that happens to us (although unlikely).

Regardless of all that, the circumstances are ours and, like it or not, we own them. We own our own circumstances. No one else is going to fix them for us. As soon as we get that idea into our heads, we can start to do something about our lives.

We can choose to do nothing about our predicaments or we can become people of action. We can take our problems and fix them. If they're not fixable (like illness, maybe), we can choose to focus on things we can affect, ever moving forward.

Bottom line: Whatever circumstances we are experiencing, they are ours and we own them.

Looking for Heroes...

...or, at least, leaders.

I saw a news story this morning about Captain Chesley B. Sullenberger. He's started flying again and the hero worship has picked back up. Now, I do believe Captain Sullenberger is a real hero and that he and his crew did heroic things.

However, we Americans throw the term "hero" around very easily. We seem to be looking for people who we can crown with that honor. It's just that, often, heroic deeds, in my opinion, are really people doing their jobs...probably very well, but not heroically. The definition of the word "hero" from thefreedictionary.com is "A person noted for feats of courage or nobility of purpose, especially one who has risked or sacrificed his or her life" and "A person noted for special achievement in a particular field". These definitions surely don't seem to fit many of the people out there in the world. That's why heroes are special.

So, why do we throw the term around so loosely? Maybe it's because we're so disillusioned with our leaders, be they public servants, religious people, or business bosses.

I'm not sure the leaders in place today are really any worse than those of the past. However, with technology what it is, we have the opportunity to hear about the dark side of many people.

I think that puts more pressure on leaders than ever: to be solid, conscientious, loyal, trustworthy people of integrity and honor who inspire others to excel and achieve.

With the ease of scrutiny, the bar that leaders have to reach is higher than ever (really, it was always a high bar so maybe it just means leaders had better not miss). People can only fake those virtues for so long.

Bottom line: Each leader needs to act and be a real leader, not just an image of one.

Making Leaders Takes Time

I was reading an overview of an article about why leadership development efforts often fail. The article said (and I agree) that it's because companies go for the "quick-fix" with leadership training just like so many other initiatives.

Companies are tempted to hire high-priced consultants or to buy off-the-shelf packages to provide their leadership training. It's not that the consultants or packages are bad. It just that leadership is one of those skills that is rarely learned quickly and consultants and leadership training packages often don't stick around that long.

Strong leaders (shoot, even moderately experienced leaders) aren't developed over night. It takes years of training, observing, coaching, messing up, etc. for most managers to be competent as leaders. Some are naturals and catch on quickly. Others never do.

Even though it's not the norm, the best leadership programs are ones that take a long-term, disciplined approach. As part of the ongoing curriculum, companies may take advantage of consultants or "products", but these components are only a part of a much larger strategy of leadership development.

What does your company do regarding leadership training?

Are You Vulnerable?

Are you vulnerable? Vulnerability is a bad idea in business. When you're vulnerable, the concern is that people can take advantage of you. You don't want to look weak.

My mother is a very open and giving person. Sometimes it appears that people take advantage of her. One time, when a friend seemed to be inappropriately using my mother, I asked her, "why do you let her do that? Don't you know she's taking advantage of you?" My mother's response was "people can't take advantage of you if you let them." I thought that was very profound. In other words, people can take advantage of the unwilling or unknowing. However, if we choose to let people do what they do, no one can say they're taking advantage of us...we're letting it happen.

Back to vulnerability. Relationships are about taking chances. Depending on how deep the relationship determines how open we are. The level of openness has a direct corollary: vulnerability.

If you believe you need to have good, solid relationships with your team members, you will have to open yourself up somewhat. When you do that, you make yourself vulnerable to those team members. You make yourself human. You show yourself to be imperfect and that you have flaws (although, they've probably already picked up on some of your flaws from working with you).

Relationships are risky. There's no doubt about it. However, in order to be the servant leader you want to be, in order to develop a sense of trust with your people, and in order to build a group of committed team members, you have to be vulnerable.

What are other risks to being vulnerable? Can you be too open with your people?

Do Your Team Members Come To You?

In times of stress, trial, or other hardships, who do your team members turn to?

Where I live now, most people have at least one relative who can be considered near by and to whom they might go when they have trouble. That isn't the case for everyone in the world. My family and I lived in Germany for 5 years. Family was 6,000 miles away. When we had stresses in our lives, we had to decide who we should talk to.

If your people are experiencing trouble, do they come to you, as their boss? Do you take the time for your folks? Do they know that you care about them as individuals as well as workers? Is there a personal relationship with each of the people directly under your care? Have you developed a culture and climate in your office that lends it to people reaching out, that lets them know it's OK to talk to the boss?

If your people have trouble, do you want them to come to you?

Smiling

Are you kidding me? Smiling? We're going to write about smiling?

Yes, of course. If you have customers, and all of us do (of one kind or another), then we want our customers to be happy and we want them to WANT to be involved with our business or operation.

When's the time to start smiling? It's when you answer the phone. Customers start making judgements about us, our teams, and our business as soon as they hear a voice (really, it's before that if you do any advertising or they've seen your web site). A voice can definitely convey a smile if we want it to.

The next smile has to be at the front desk. You know, typically the front desk person is the lowest paid in the office, but she or he often has the most important role. This person is the one who can give the first face-to-face smile a customer sees. Your front desk person has to be free to focus on the customers as they come in and should know that a "live" customer is always the first priority over customers on the phone or on email. The front desk person should really be happy to see customers coming in and that's not always easy to do. Maybe the answer is to fake it sometimes if we're not "feeling it", but often we're not that good as actors.

I can go through the list of staff in your office in reference to smiling, but the key is to be smiling all the time. Smiles are infectious and they make other people feel better. They can help our customers feel glad that they chose to come and see us.

I'm smart enough to know that a smile isn't what gets us business...it's bringing value to our customers that gets them in our doors. Still, if we bring value with a poor attitude, then is it really valuable at all? Most people like to be around others who are glad to see them. It's the same with customers.

If smiling isn't a natural expression for you or your people (it's not always for everybody...some people are just serious), then you need to practice and get the team members to help by letting their coworkers know when the smile slips a little.

You may think this is all silly, but I'm deadly serious. Our customers should expect our best and they should get it. To do business with you (unless you're in business based totally on price), they're going to want to receive value and receive it in a positive atmosphere.

So, SMILE!