Culture is defined by what your organization is willing to tolerate.
In the engineering profession, it can be tempting to let otherwise high-performing individuals get away with bad workplace behavior.
The reality is that drama, bullying, poor communication, and general interpersonal carelessness almost always gets in the way of the larger team reaching its true potential.
I would argue that the teams that still manage to succeed with a leader or teammate that exhibits these characteristics do so in spite of that team member’s behavior, not because of it, and otherwise would be capable of so much more.
On the other hand, we’ve all seen a much less-experienced team member, who knows the power of teamwork, communication, and respect step up to take the reins of a team or project. More often than not, this person’s team and projects far outperformed the other individual discussed above—and amplified the ability of the people around them to learn, grow, and happily serve customers.
Once I saw this pattern, I focused on hiring and promoting for this behavior, rather than raw technical firepower.
When dealing with a very difficult high-performing lone wolf on my team, a leader whom I have a great deal of respect for told me at one point that “behavior is a key component of performance”—and he was absolutely right.
Any feedback or performance review is not complete unless it addresses the interpersonal dynamics that an individual contributes to—good or bad.
It does a disservice to the individual, and their team, to allow this behavior to go unaddressed for the sake of high individual technical output; a failure to address bad behavior risks the alternate challenges of dealing with high turnover on the rest of the team, poor morale, low work output/quality, and upset customers.
From a practical standpoint, how should leaders address this?
Sometimes, letting the individual know that you see the behavior can be enough. I call this the “Eye of Sauron” effect—there is nowhere to hide and I see you. This is an opportunity for a leader to have the courage to share with the individual that you care about them, their professional development, and helping them reach higher heights than they are capable of with their current style. Additionally, that you care about the team and the organization’s well-being, and share that this individual’s career options will remain limited until the behavior is proactively addressed.
Other times, this is a much more difficult discussion. When the leader receives pushback, there are a few possibilities here:
- Values Misalignment — The individual may not have a baseline set of values that places teamwork, communication, and mutual respect at the top (potentially the wrong workplace for them, and could call for eventually separating the individual)
- Stress/Overwhelm — They may have personal/professional stress that is clouding their ability to see the greater need to change (may require co-creating a solution that gives them space to address these challenges)
- Passive Reinforcement — This behavior may have gone on for years, and may even have been incentivized by leaders continuing to give outsized raises and promotions to the individual in spite of their effect on the team (may take reinforcing the standard and creating real pressure/consequences—leading to them either getting on board or self-selecting by leaving if they can’t or won’t get there)
Prudent leaders can and should start asking themselves a few questions at this point:
- Am I willing to overlook this individual’s behavior to keep technical and project KPI’s on track in the short-term, and risk cultural decay of the team/org, turnover, and reduced team performance in the medium- to long-term?
- Is there another path that I can take to reduce the over-reliance on this individual, which limits the decisions I can make at the moment to address their behavior?
- What support do I have from the larger organization to address this challenge, and what are the HR policies associated with addressing behavior?
- What has been documented so far in this person’s history throughout the company—am I starting from scratch or is there already a paper trail?
When dealing with behavioral gaps—as is the case with technical gaps—our primary goal from a human leadership standpoint is to empathetically help the individual become aware of their actions, how those actions are impacting their career and teammates, and set the standard as to what it would look like to meet expectations moving forward.
If you are finding these conversations difficult, I would be happy to partner with you in continuing to build and utilize this skillset.
For further reading, I would also recommend:
- “Crucial Conversations/Crucial Accountability” (Patterson, Kerry, et al)