How to Handle Negativity in the Workplace

This post was written by CoachJulieRN on February 24, 2010
Posted Under: Be More Assertive,Develop Leadership Skills

Challenge: I’m a new manager leading a team of sales professionals. One of my associates is very negative and does minimal work. While he meets quota, he could do so much more and his negativity impacts the other members of our team. He’s been with our company for a number of years and it seems no one has done anything. How should I handle it?

Regardless of where you work there seems to be someone who is negative, enjoys gossiping or whose pessimistic view dampens the rest of the team.

Creating chaos, causing difficulties between coworkers and starting debates in meetings are some of the behaviors exhibited by this Negative Nelly. Always providing an excuse, knowing just who to blame and taking any minor event and making it into a major catastrophe, this person manages to manipulate the situation to deflect attention from her. In summary, this person seems to be able to do or say whatever they want to the dismay of their coworkers.

Paying the Price

Managers often do not know how to handle this type of situation and therefore, the person seems to get away with the behavior; but this doesn’t happen without a price. The entire organization suffers in both obvious and not so obvious ways.

Obvious ways can be disgruntled staff, staff turnover, complaints and a pervasive negative energy when dealing with this person or with the department where he or she works. The loss of even one employee can be very costly to your organization. And when your employees are distracted, their performance and their productivity suffer. When employees aren’t working at their level of excellence, there’s an opportunity cost for the organization. The time and energy spent thinking about and talking about this person’s actions could be better spent performing their job duties.

Not so obvious impacts can occur in the form of customer dissatisfaction or lost revenue. This means, the impact on the company is difficult to measure from a lost customer. If the customer has a bad experience, not only do they take their business elsewhere, they harbor adverse feelings toward your company and tell others about their unpleasant experiences.

Permitting a difficult employee to negatively impact your organization, rather than dealing with their behavior, is costly to your organization. If not addressed, their behavior often continues until something happens that makes it impossible to ignore.

Tolerating the Behavior

First of all, the behavior is the issue not the person. The person is wonderful; the behavior is not. Confusing these two elements can cause managers and coworkers not to act. If you fear hurting the person’s feelings, then you are addressing the person rather than the behavior.