The scene
Is the villain a mild mannered considerate person with the ability to reason? Or are they a person who shows a blatant disregard for their fellow workers and is often known to arrive late, rule with an acid tongue and generally irritate others at the drop of a hat. You guessed it, the latter.
Our villain makes the comfortable feel awkward, the meek turn sour and the strongest will dissolve, all due to totally inappropriate behaviour. When it is suggested that they are bullying to get action they deny all knowledge of the incidents and blame everyone else in sight!
Unfortunately there still seems to be people like this in the business world and I am sure that the stories that could be related from just a small sample group would be enough to make your hair curl! But alas this is how it is and the situation should be dealt with immediately if not sooner. So if you are this type of manager or supervisor, you should carefully consider taking action to prevent your whole world crumbling beneath you before you know it. Often this type of person moves on through various workplaces, blaming past employers for their plight.
Who cares any way?
Workers the world round care that’s who cares! In the scheme of things it is important to ensure that people are treated with respect and care, after all we all bring our unique qualities to the world and these should be explored and developed to suit, so it makes sense that we should all care about how our managers and supervisors operate. Remember the aim is to have an effective work environment, if it’s effective, people will be more motivated and then a level of innovation takes place. This is where they start to take initiative and find better ways of doing things rather than trying to destroy the system.
What should have happened?
As mentioned, the perpetrator needs to be aware of the situation and the mere understanding can be enough to get initial results, the problem here is that someone has to make them aware of the situation. If they resist the telling, then the situations that arise in the future need to be carefully recorded and they need to be made aware of the problem and the facts at hand.
This should be done in a way that does not berate the person but allows them to understand that they can be better at what they do, not an easy task by any means!
What’s the difference?
The difference is a more motivated workforce. On a number of occasions I am in a position to witness a whole range of problems that have surfaced as a result of poor management, imagine being called in to solve a management problem and the manager was the main source of the drama, thankfully the situation was readily addressed and soon overcome but this is not always the case. Some will say that it is easy to sit on the other side of the fence and criticise, they are right. Those who say ‘but this is an informed viewpoint from which to observe’, they are right And there will be those who will say that is how it is so leave well enough alone.
The problem with this final response is that we have done so for too long. Larger businesses have focussed on developing their staff and have a complex set of individuals working together to ensure a balance of input and can readily set up a benchmark by which to measure from. Smaller businesses on the other hand possibly feel more isolated and therefore could find it harder to implement, however this should not deter them from trying.
No one wants to have a bull in a china shop, one way or another it becomes expensive!
