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Reports : Toxic Behaviour: Spotting, understanding, and avoiding it in yourself and others
Peter Rogan of Future Positive Consulting writes "a key driver of success at individual and organization level is engagement – the degree to which we can get people on our side and willing to help us succeed. Getting good at that with the range of different people we interact with is a bit of an art form and developing the skill of winning friends and influencing people is always worth honing. The other side of the coin is also worth considering: Making sure that we are keeping our potential to lose friends and alienate people in check. As human beings we’ve all got some potential down that road as well". Read more from Peters May 2010 e-zine below.
See Peter at our Summer School at the University of Edinburgh in June thias year. [Click here] for more details
Peter argues that there are two aspects to this:
- Understanding our own “dark side” attitudes and behaviours.
"This is vital because, firstly, we have the potential to choose self-destructive behaviours, for example being a workaholic. Secondly we have the potential to choose behaviours that could damage relationships, for example arrogance. These behaviours could switch others off, or worse, actively antagonize people, drawing out their negativity, creating conflicts and earning us a reputation as toxic".
- Understanding other people’s “dark side” behaviours.
"Being able to do this allows us to understand and manage tricky relationships, rather than getting annoyed and over-reacting to it and getting sucked into deadly embraces (situations where we are actively engaged with people negatively, drawing out the worse in each other.)"
"Bob and Joyce Hogan helped business psychology take a significant stride forward in understanding this area. They were asked to help solve the problem that many organizations encountered of hiring talented people (and in particular managers) who:
- Plateaued: Got to a certain level of performance, below their expected potential, and then got stuck, especially when it came to motivating or working with others.
- Derailed: Whose attitudes and behaviours (again, particularly toward other people) were so problematic that they had to be fired.
Peter syas that "The Hogan’s, building on proven existing psychological models, created the classic eleven-factor model of common “dark side” characteristics, “dysfunctional dispositions and the flawed interpersonal strategies that will interfere with the ability of that person" Understanding this is important for:
- Managing others, gaining their trust and inspiring and motivating them
- Limiting Damage and managing the quality of relationships with colleagues, customers and suppliers.
- Working effectively in teams
- Operating effectively on routine duties in high-pressure situations”
The Hogan model: Structure and content
Peter tells us that "there are eleven factors (or “dimensions” as the Hogan’s called them). This is a spectrum model: On each dimension there is a spectrum of behavior from a positive “bright side” quality to a toxic “dark side” quality. When people are balanced and positive, the bright side comes to the fore. However, when tired, pressured, bored or complacent, the damaging dark side characteristics will become evident".
1. Excitable
Spectrum: Enthusiastic –volatile
Toxicity factor: Volatility. Overly enthusiastic about people or projects, then becoming disappointed with them. Moody, irritable, easily annoyed, bad tempered, inconsistent, emotionally volatile, hard to please.
2. Sceptical
Spectrum: Shrewd-mistrustful
Toxicity factor: Habitual mistrust. Socially insightful, but cynical. Doubting of others’ true intentions and focused on the negatives, seeming hyper-alert and appearing to be distrustful, suspicious, and paranoid. Overly sensitive to criticism, which is often taken personally, readily feel mistreated and tend to retaliate when feeling wronged. Often bear grudges and preoccupied with unjustified doubts.
3. Cautious
Spectrum: Careful-cautious
Toxicity factor: Excessive caution. Overly worried about being negatively judged or criticized. Resistant to change, risk averse, reluctant to take chances or offer controversial opinions. Often rule bound and slow to make decisions
4. Reserved
Spectrum: Independent-detached
Toxicity factor: Aloofness. Self-focused, lacking interest in other people or their interests and concerns. Lacking empathy, being unaware of others’ feelings and unaware or unconcerned how their actions affect others. Aloof, uncommunicative, poor motivator, disengaged and disconnected from staff.
5. Leisurely
Spectrum: Focused - passive-aggressive
Toxicity factor: Passive resistance. Independent, uncooperative, reluctant to be part of a team. Will ignore others’ requests, covertly rather than overtly, for example through procrastination (their silence may be taken as acceptance or agreement), becoming irritable and stubborn if people persist.
6. Bold
Spectrum: Confident-arrogant
Toxicity factor: Arrogance. Always right and know better than everybody. Overly self-confident, with inflated views of competence and inflated feelings of self-worth. Arrogant, opinionated, self-absorbed, poor at listening and unwilling to admit mistakes, accept when they are wrong, listen to advice or learn from experience. Impulsive, pushy, action-focused and dictatorial, making poor decisions based on minimal information and analysis. Failing to secure most people’s buy-in, support, loyalty or genuine respect.
7. Mischievous
Spectrum: Charming-manipulative
Toxicity factor: Mischievousness. Think rules are there to be broken. Charismatic, confident, charming and persuasive (to senior managers and clients at least, but not always to colleagues at other levels). Often more soundbite than substance. Easily bored, seek excitement, take risks and test limits without fully evaluating the consequences. Can read people’s feelings and say the right thing to manipulate, but lack genuine empathy and concern. Unreliable, have trouble keeping commitments. Ignore mistakes and advice. Poor at listening and learning.
8. Colourful
Spectrum: Vivacious-dramatic
Toxicity factor: Melodrama. Always wanting to be the centre attention. Active, energetic, expressive, vivacious, engaging, entertaining, melodramatic and attention seeking. Self-centred, preoccupied with being noticed, admired and at the centre of attention. Too quick to take the credit and slow to listen to criticism or negative feedback. Lacks persistence and quick to blame others or external factors.
9. Imaginative
Spectrum: Imaginative-eccentric
Toxicity factor: Eccentricity. Being different just for the sake/self-indulgence of it. Innovative, creative and original. Impulsive, thinking and acting in interesting, unusual and eccentric ways. Lacking judgment, ideas may be vague, unrealistic, impractical, inappropriate, or adding features of little value. Strong focus on the future, the possible and grand visions of the big picture, overlooking the local, immediate and specific (which may endanger short-term results and even survival). Behaviour may be socially inappropriate, thinking it is fun to be different just for the sake of it.
10. Diligent
Spectrum: Diligent-perfectionist
Toxicity factor: Perfectionism. Meticulous, precise, conscientious, strong integrity, hard to please, perfectionist. Obsessed with details and rules. The focus on perfection interfering with the tasks which need to be done. May suffer analysis paralysis increasing cost and risk by too much information gathering and analysis and delay in deciding. Poor prioritization, little things are done right while the big things go wrong or are ignored. Fussy, critical, stubborn, self-righteous, workaholic, poor at delegation, rigid and controlling. May place unreasonable demands on others, disempowering and demoralizing staff
11. Dutiful
Spectrum: Dutiful: Dutiful-dependent
Toxicity factor: Too eager to please. Pleasant, agreeable, friendly and appears to be good team player. Desires first and foremost to be accepted and popular. Overly dependent on other’s opinions and approval. Doesn’t like working alone, or standing out, reluctant to act independently or against the flow of opinion. Risk adverse and indecisive, finding it particularly difficult to make decisions on their own. Overly focused on relationships, sometimes protecting staff, or over-delivering to clients, raising costs and damaging profit.
Peter's Tips for making sure you that you don’t fall into the toxic trap
Peter says that "many people do not fully recognize what is happening with them and the potential seriousness of it. Since it makes other people feel uncomfortable, intimidated or angry, few people (including the boss) ever give people any real feedback about them. It is therefore especially important in this difficult area that we remain self-aware and take responsibility for our behavior and the quality of our relationships". His useful tips include:
- Know your strengths and play to them, but also recognise that these (ironically) are the very things that you are likely to over-play and become toxic on when under pressure. (Confidence turning to arrogance, caution into indecisiveness etc)
- Don’t needlessly antagonise: Be aware how and when you might do this): It’s amazing how, as human beings we can see all the things that make others seem difficult to us but find it harder to see how we might be perceived as difficult to others. With a little more self-awareness and empathy we can get a lot more insight into how we might be contributing to difficult relationships.
- Don’t be antagonised: If you are getting into ‘emotional hijacking’ territory, hit the big red button in your head. Stop and think. Don’t give away your personal power (feeling good in yourself) or your interpersonal power (your credibility) by over-reacting to others’ negative behaviour.
- Know other people’s strengths and play to them: If we can recognize people’s strengths (when we get past the very human but unproductive temptation to judge and criticize them for their weaknesses) then we can treat them with genuine respect and help them to bring the best of themselves to the situation. Most people, if treated with respect and given a chance to succeed are more likely to turn away from difficult behavior and choose to cooperate.
- Accommodate: Give People what they need, to a reasonable degree: We all have particular communication needs and preferences which we feel are reasonable and would like met.
- Complement: Use your strengths to complement their weaknesses and limitations, and vice versa (for example teaming with a steady diligent person if you are an enthusiastic person you could form quite a powerful partnership.
- Constructively challenge any unhelpful behaviours which remain after you’ve done all the positive stuff. Be firm positive and respectful as your raise their awareness of the impact on you of their behavior, and suggest what behaviours you would find more productive and helpful. (The strong odds are of course that the positive stuff will have entirely removed any scope for people to be difficult with you).
Peters Recommended reading
If you’d like to read more on this, I’d thoroughly recommend the fantastic : “When CEOs fail by Dotlich and Cairo”. If you’d like to learn more about the Hogan Development Survey, the Leadership Development tool that the Hogans built from this, just let Peter know.