How to Handle Team Members with Bad Attitudes
How to handle team members with bad attitudes? Disruptive team members is a problem we have all faced either when managing a team or working in a team. Other team member’s bad attitudes can quickly affect your attitude and performance and the team’s attitude and performance. Dealing with negative employees is energy draining at the best of times for those around them.
I going to take you through six steps to take to improve this situation as a manager of that team. If you are a co-worker, these steps will be just as useful for you to follow. This is what we are going to cover.
Bad attitudes can be more disruptive than poor performance on team dynamics, happiness and overall team performance. It is in no-one’s interest to allow team members to continue with a bad attitude.
How to Handle Team Members with Bad Attitudes
- Do not ignore the problem
- Find out The Why
- Temporary or Permanent?
- The Best Course Of Action
- Set Expectations
- Make The Change Happen
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So let’s go through six key steps to taking the right actions for the benefit of all.
1 – Do Not Ignore The Problem – the most important step to handle team members with bad attitudes
A team member with a bad attitude can quickly infect others with negative behaviours and you can easily see team morale and motivation heading downwards.
It is your job as a manager to handle this problem. To do your job, you cannot ignore the situation – you must take action. All the other team members are looking at you to see how you will react. And your reactions are going to set the rules, not what you say.
If you take no action, you are effectively signalling to the team that it is perfectly fine to have a bad attitudes through your lack of action. If team motivation and happiness drop, then team performance is likely to follow soon after and then you will have your manager worried about your performance.
So take action as quickly as practical after you become aware that a person in the team has a bad attitude.
If you are not the manager of the team, then your role is to make the manager aware of the bad attitude of a team member. Before you speak to your manager, take the time to gather some examples – note down what was said by the person and when. Start the conversation with your manager along the lines of
“Peter / Louise (your manager), I am worried that something is wrong with Bob. He seems very down and is being very negative at the moment. Some of the examples of what he is saying to colleagues are …..”
If your manager is not aware of the problem, they will not be able to take action and successful manager disruptive employees. So don’t ignore the problem or hope someone else will say something. Take action.
2 – Find out Why The employee has a bad attitude – an essential step for team members with bad attitudes
There can be a huge range of reasons and until you know why the behaviour is happening, it is very hard to decide what action to take when planning how to handle employees with bad attitudes.
Examples
Some examples of reasons could be:
- The team member is really upset at how they are being treated at work. Colleagues might be causing them problems, they might have a problem with what you their manager is doing or actions you have taken, or they have recently missed a promotion, etc
- The team member has problems at home or in their personal lives which is impacting their outlook and behaviour at work
- The employee is a negative or glass half full person – they always look for faults and what could go wrong.
- The employee has low self-confidence and try to bring others down around them to make themselves feel better
Before you start dealing with the negative employee, speak to other team members. Is the bad attitude being experienced by all or many of the team members or is it just being experience by one person.
Collate a number of different examples from several team members so you can provide examples to the individual rather than just opinion. This create a much stronger impact and is much harder for the team member with the bad attitude to brush off.
Then have a private meeting with the individual with the bad attitude. Use the examples to highlight the issues and ask what is causing this behaviour. Then stop talking and actively listen to their answer. Give them plenty of space and time to respond.
Don’t take the next steps until you understand what is causing the bad attitude and disruptive behaviour.
3. Temporary or Permanent? How long is the bad attitude likely to last?
Decide if the bad attitude is likely to be temporary or more permanent feature.
For example, if you have a team member who has worked at the company for years, and until recently has had a good or reasonable attitude, then there is a good chance of being able to improve their attitude.
If you have a new starter and they seem to be sowing discord within the team already, then there is a good chance that this might be a personality issue and a more permanent aspect to their behaviour and personality.
After understanding the reasons for the bad attitude, use your judgement to weight the effort of supporting the person to change their attitude and the likelihood of that support being successful against the time and effort you will put in. For what appears to be a temporary bad attitude, then the effort is likely to be worthwhile. If it appears a more permanent feature of their approach and behaviour, providing support and coaching is a lot less likely to be successful.
You will not be able to change the behaviour and attitude of the other person unless they understand the problem their bad attitude is causing, and they want to change their approach. The disruptive employee has to choose to change. You can’t make them change or choose for them.
4. Decide the Best Course of Action
There are a wide range of actions that you could consider, and it is important that you choose the right approach for a given situation.
The surer you are that the individual is having a temporary period of bad attitude, then the more it is in your and the company’s interests to support them to get back to a more constructive and positive attitude. This saves the time and cost of hiring a new person and training them etc, plus you build loyalty in your team and with that person. All good reasons for investing the time to see if you can help them change their attitude.
The more permanent the bad attitude appears to be, or the less evidence that the person has been more positive in the past, then the stronger I advise you to take steps to remove this person from the team and company.
For example, if a person has recently joined and is demonstrating a bad attitude when they should be on best behaviour, what will they be like when they are more established in the business? Why take the risk and keep them in the business?
Use your judgement as to how temporary or permanent the bad attitude is. Consider this when planning what course of action to take based.
Set Out Your Expectations In Writing – The fifth step when planning how to handle team members with bad attitudes
In most scenarios, I would suggest that you set out a Personal Improvement Plan with the individual. This is a written document that you put together setting out your expectations of their behaviour, with examples of what good behaviour or attitude looks like. A very important step is to get the individual to contribute and give them the opportunity to negotiate points they feel are unfair or unreasonable. If you have gathered sufficient examples in step 2, then this process will get the mutually agreed goals you need – improved behaviour and attitude even if the individual is being difficult.
Give the individual a timeframe to improve their attitude – 3 months is long enough to see significant improvement to a bad attitude. If there is no or little improvement, you can always take more formal action sooner than 3 months.
Set measurable milestones where possible so both you and the other party know when they have reached acceptable attitudes and behaviours. This is not as easy to do for attitude issues as performance issues. An example might be team members no longer experiencing negative behaviour. Try to use several opinions rather than just your own. This is fairer and is seen to be fairer and therefore less disputable.
Then set up fortnightly or monthly progress meetings and capture in writing the progress or lack of it with the individual. Try to avoid a situation which has your opinion pitted against theirs – use factual evidence or third party opinion as much as possible.
Coach and support the individual as much as possible or get another person to undertake this role, assuming you have decided that improving the individual’s attitude is beneficial for the team and business.
6. Make The Change Happen
As a manager or leader learning how to manage disruptive employees to a successful conclusion is important. As discussed, bad attitudes can create a lot of problems for you, the team and the business. So one way or the other you need to help move the person’s attitude to a much more positive place or move the person from the team and business.
I believe in giving team members a good chance. Spending time coaching, listening, and supporting them can make a huge different to their attitude. Helping them remove the problem that is causing their bad attitude will also make a huge difference. With valued employees that have added a lot to the team then making the time to support them is a no brainer.
Keep a documented framework to the support you provide and keep monitoring their progress against agreed expectations.
If you have listened, supported and coached yet there is no or little change to the team member’s bad attitude, then you need to take sensible steps to remove them from your team before they do further damage.
Or if the team member with a bad attitude is a new person, on probation or early in their career with your company, then it is your judgement call whether you move much more quickly to remove them from the business.
Do not shy away from taking steps to remove disruptive employees with bad attitudes from your business.
Good luck in how you go about dealing with negative employees.
In summary
By taking positive action, you are signaling to the individual and your team that you will not put up with bad attitudes. Be as supportive and as fair as possible and if that doesn’t work, then take alternative action.
Remember, the most important action to take in how to deal with employee with a bad attitude is to start the process I have taken you through. The sooner the better.
If you have any questions on “How to Handle Team Members with Bad Attitudes”, please email me at support@enhance.training
Having employees with bad attitudes in a team is a nightmare. The problems they cause sucks up a lot of time. Everyone in the team gets annoyed at them and at you if the problems continue. Worst of all team performance is only going to go down if you don’t take effective action.
Don’t put up with bad attitudes from team members. Find out what the issues are and help them overcome the issues or ask them to leave the team.
