Employees Behaving Badly

Paul Gretton-Watson
Director

Some of our regular readers may recall previous ezine articles where we started to explore the toll high conflict personalities can take on their line managers, colleagues and anyone else unfortunate enough to find themselves in their orbit.

During 2010, ResolutionsRTK partnered with the State Services Authority in Victoria to undertake research into best practice support for managing difficult behaviours in the workplace.  This topic soon identified that high conflict personalities are frequently at the epicentre of more extreme or “difficult behaviour” experienced in the workplace. 

Our investigation focused on more extreme and difficult workplace behaviour by conducting a series of focus groups and interviews with employees of the Victorian Public Sector (VPS). This flushed out a number of telltale hallmarks to identity high conflict employees.  As you prepare to read this list, I hazard to guess that you have somebody already in mind that you sense may be one of these types of employees, and have your own history of being tested by your dealings with them.

Our research findings, which incorporated a literature review, ResolutionsRTK data on this challenging cohort of staff, and direct feedback from VPS employees, identified a number of dimensions and factors. To help simplify our findings the key hallmarks have been organised according to Daniel Goleman’s 4 dimensions of emotional intelligence shown to the right. Why use an emotional intelligence lens to look at high conflict employees? Put simply, one or more dimensions of emotional intelligence are generally poorly developed, and for the most extreme cases seem non-existent.

I have taken the liberty of highlighting in bold some of the key dimensions that we find resonate strongly with clients we support when dealing with high conflict people.

 

Self Awareness
  • Lack personal insight and is unable to
    reflect on own behaviour
  • Self-absorbed - focused on getting their
    own needs met (irrespective of the impact this might have on others)
  • Rules apply to others not to them – they
    need to be treated specially
  • May lack remorse for the impact they cause
    on others
Social Awareness
  • Lack empathy for others
  • Evidence high conflict thinking and reasoning driven by their inner world and deeply held fears
  • See their targets as either all good or all bad with no positive qualities at all
  • Frequently misinterpret events and other people’s intentions
Self Management
  • Poor impulse control
  • Moods tend to swing from charming to vindictive
  • Will not accept negative feedback and
    likely to respond in an aggressively defensive manner
  • Arguments often lack logic or reason and
    tend to be argued more emotively
  • More likely to make vexatious or multiple grievances or claims – can sometimes become querulous in their pursuit of a litany
    of grievances, allegations and complaints.
  • Avoid responsibility for both the problem
    or solution
  • Find it difficult to accept and heal from loss
  • Get easily stuck in conflicts over minor or existent events
  • Extreme emotional intensity about blaming their targets
 Relationship Management
  • Puts others down
  • May manage well upwards – often levels above direct line manager
  • Preoccupied with blaming others - it’s always someone else’s problem or fault
  • Rigid and uncompromising
  • Preoccupied with blaming specific people (often their manager) who becomes their targets of blame
  • Recruit others (negative advocates) to attack their targets
  • Often present as a convincing victim of some one else who, usually, has become their target of blame
  • Feel entitled to things (above others) and demand it now
  • Manipulate relationships to serve own interests

You may have noticed above that the 'self management' and 'management of others' quadrants tend to be where the full challenge of dealing with high conflict employees is truly experienced.

For access to the full report that has been published on SSA’s website, go to www.ssa.vic.gov.au look under the tab “publications” and then the sub-tab, “current publications”.  Alternatively, you can just click here!

This report also provides useful evidence based on strategies and tips for managing high conflict personalities and these more extreme forms of difficult workplace behaviour.  There will be further articles written on this popular and intriguing topic throughout 2011.

© ResolutionsRTK 2011 | Ezine | Volume 5 | Issue 1 | March 2011