LEADERS RECOGNIZE THE IMPACT OF ONE PROBLEMATIC TEAM MEMBER
Last week, I attended a conference of the Association for Continuing Legal Education in San Diego, California. I had been active with this group for the 32 years I led the CLE program at Georgetown Law Center.
During this conference, I presented a a session on the skills of building and maintaining relationships and how critical those skills are to our everyday work.
During the conference, I also exhibited for several days for my leadership coaching practice. Many leaders, I know and those I did not know approached my table to engage in conversations about leadership. Like me, they enjoy conversing about this important subject.
Interestingly, several leaders talked to me about the same issue: how to deal with one team member who has a bad attitude, doesn’t like his her job, or gets in the way of other teammates doing their jobs.
I asked these leaders how they were handling the situation. Several said they were very frustrated, that they had tried everything they knew, but that the person just didn’t seem to “get it.” Moreover, they were frustrated that this person‘s negative attitude was having a deleterious effect on other teammates.
These conversations reminded me of an episode several decades ago during my early days of leading the Georgetown CLE program. We employed a young woman on our team who served as an administrative assistant. I hired her and wanted her to succeed.
After several months, I noticed that this woman seemed to be struggling with her job and her attitude. She made repeated mistakes and she did not seem to enjoy her job or look forward to coming to work in the morning.
So I attempted to coach her as best I knew how. I gave her tips, I carefully edited her work, I gave her reminders, and I asked others on our team to help her.
What I noticed was that other team members became frustrated with me because they thought I was coddling this young woman and not holding her accountable. They actually started gossiping about me and how I was treating her.
At first, I did some soul-searching. I asked myself these questions:
“What’s wrong with me?”
“Why can’t I reach this young woman?”
“Why aren’t the same management and leadership techniques I’ve used with other teammates succeeding with her?”
Finally, I spoke with people in HR. They suggested I create a performance improvement plan for this young woman, which I did. The plan did not work. Eventually, I had to terminate this young woman after trying as hard as I could.
As soon as she left our team, it was as if a light bulb went on.
Everything seemed to change:
-People in the office were happier.
-People stopped gossiping about the situation.
-People walked around smiling instead of frowning.
-People were encouraged about the future of the office
-People thanked me for taking a difficult but necessary step.
Thanks to this episode, I learned what a terrible negative effect just one team member can have on an entire office, on every other person who works there and on the office culture. I also learned that sometimes no matter how skilled we are at leadership and no matter how hard we try, our mentoring and coaching skills will not succeed with a team member.
As I discussed with leaders at the conference in San Diego, please never underestimate the negative impact one problematic team member can have on everybody else. Endeavor to address the challenge effectively and quickly.
-People on your team will thank you for your efforts.
-They will appreciate your leadership initiative.
-They will be more motivated to help improve the culture in your office.
Unfortunately, the old cliché that one bad apple spoils an entire bunch applies not just to fruit, but to work teams.
Please keep that in mind as you move forward on your leadership journeys.
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-Larry