Bringing It to Life #2: Dealing with High Conflict Personalities in the Workplace
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Apr 25, 2024
Identifying and managing high conflict personalities in the workplace is crucial for maintaining a healthy work environment. Bill and Megan discuss behavior patterns, consequences of toxic employees, and effective management strategies like coaching and setting limits. They emphasize the importance of early intervention and the positive impact of removing disruptive individuals on workplace culture.
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insights INSIGHT
Small Source, Large Workplace Impact
A single high conflict manager can ripple dysfunction down through assistants and teams, creating polarization and chaos.
Identifying patterns, not isolated incidents, reveals when conflict is driven by personality rather than situational problems.
volunteer_activism ADVICE
Assess Individuals By Their Patterns
Look at each person's recurring behavior: blame, black-and-white thinking, unmanaged emotions, and extreme actions.
Base decisions on observed patterns rather than colleagues' accusations or mutual reporting.
volunteer_activism ADVICE
Use Coaching As A Diagnostic Step
Offer targeted coaching as a first step and monitor change across a few sessions.
Expect roughly half to improve and half to resist; use coaching results to guide next steps.
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Bill and Megan continue their “Bringing It to Life” series, discussing how to identify and manage high conflict personalities in the workplace. They provide insights and strategies for leaders to improve workplace culture.
Bill and Megan aim to help listeners learn skills to keep conflict small and maintain healthy work environments. In this episode, they focus on limiting the damage caused by toxic employees.
Recognizing High Conflict Behavior Patterns
Bill explains the typical behavior patterns of high conflict personalities. These include blaming others, black-and-white thinking, uncontrolled emotions, and taking extreme actions.
Megan notes that toxic employees can split work groups and harm morale. Their behavior tends to be rigid and repetitive.
They discuss methods to identify whether one or more employees are exhibiting these disruptive patterns.
Managing High Conflict Employees
Bill and Megan explore options like coaching, setting limits, and imposing consequences. They note that firing toxic staff may be necessary.
They stress the importance of intervening early before the situation escalates. Allowing bullying and chaos enables bad behavior.
The hosts explain how removing one high conflict person can calm tensions and shift workplace culture.
Questions we answer in this episode:
How do you spot high conflict behavior patterns?
Should you keep or fire toxic employees?
What happens after a high conflict employee leaves?
Key Takeaways:
Look for patterns like blaming, black-and-white thinking, uncontrolled emotions.
Don't wait years to address high conflict employees.
Removing bullies can transform workplace culture.
This practical episode provides valuable insights for improving morale and productivity by minimizing the damage caused by high conflict personalities. Bill and Megan offer useful strategies to create a thriving workplace.
It’s All Your Fault: High Conflict People