588 | How do you Address Passive-Aggressive Behavior at Work?

Introduction (00:00:00)

Learn to identify and address passive-aggressive behavior in the workplace with effective strategies for clear communication and maintaining a positive team environment. That is coming up next.

Welcome to the Chris LoCurto Show, where we discuss leadership and life and discover that business is what you do, not who you are. Welcome to the show, folks.

I hope you're having a fabulous day wherever you are. Today we are diving into a tricky but essential topic, and that's addressing passive-aggressive behavior at work.

Identifying Passive-Aggressive Behavior (00:00:50)

I think even if you don't fully understand what that looks like, I think everybody listening to this show can recognize some level of passive-aggressive behavior. And it's terrible when you're a leader.

Now, obviously, it's terrible when you're a team member having to deal with passive-aggressive behaviors.

But when you're a leader, you have no choice but to recognize how much it's affecting not only that person but the people around them and the culture.

And, you know, you have to do something about it. But one of the things that we discover is not everybody knows what to do. And again, not everybody recognizes the behavior.

So to start off, I'm just going to kind of give you some ideas of what it looks like or, you know, what it sounds like.

Then we'll explore decently practical strategies for leaders to address different forms of passive-aggressiveness because there are many forms of passive-aggressiveness.

Common Forms of Passive-Aggressive Behavior (00:01:43)

So let's kind of just jump into first identifying passive-aggressive behaviors. And I'm not going to hit everything. I'm just going to hit a couple of things that you may have experienced in the workplace, and some of these may surprise you.

You're like, oh, crud, I have experienced that. I did not realize. So things like procrastination, how in the world is that passive-aggressive behavior? Well, when it is intentional, then it can absolutely be.

Now, I'm not saying that everybody who procrastinates is displaying passive-aggressive behavior.

However, there are many times that you will find that somebody is procrastinating something because they're upset, because they're frustrated, because they are holding a grudge.

You know, you might feel this kind of subtle resistance from them as well, like that they're being deliberately inefficient, that they could be doing something really well, but they're not.

I can tell you one of the passive-aggressive behaviors I absolutely hate is somebody sandbagging their job because they're afraid that if they work efficiently or if they work faster, then there's going to be so much more required of them.

For the love, do your job. Why are you not wanting to work at a pace that's a good pace? Well, for some people, that procrastination, that deliberate inefficiency, they believe helps them to stay in control of the work pace.

You have probably seen this somewhere. You've probably experienced this. And if you're a parent, you've probably experienced this with your kids at some point because kids definitely like to slow boat stuff until something more important comes along.

Right? So it's funny how you can even see that in adults if there's something that's important, like, let's say they need to leave early, boy, they sure can get the job done all of a sudden a heck of a lot faster than they have for the last week.

Why is that so different? Because it's deliberate, and that's one of the things we need to be looking at for. We'll talk a little bit more about that.

What about things like, you know, passive-aggressive behaviors that show up, like sarcastic comments? Those tend to drive me nuts. Now, I can be a sarcastic person because I think I'm really funny.

I'm very funny in my own head. Often you'll hear me say, well, that was a lot funnier in my head because I think I'm funny. But we're not talking about that.

We're not talking about those who think they're funny. We're talking about those who are making comments because they're being passive-aggressive and trying to affect something or trying to get a point across.

Or maybe they give, like a, you know, one of those backhanded compliments that, like, at first, like, oh, thanks, I think. I'm not sure that was actually a compliment. Actually, that. Now that I think about that, that may have been a dig.

You know, we see that. We experience that or maybe even something like the silent treatment. All of these are just so childish. It is difficult for me because it really shows you the mental age of the person who is dishing these pieces out. Right?

I mean, it's just ridiculous. And again, I wanna say, when I'm talking about the silent treatment, I'm talking about that deliberate, I'm not gonna talk with you because I'm trying to get a point across. That is so childish.

Now, that is not the same thing as somebody who's frustrated and is like, I don’t need to talk right now. I don’t need. If I say something, something bad might come up.

So I’m just gonna choose not to talk. That’s not what I’m talking about.

I’m talking about that person who is doing everything they can to avoid you, to not speak up, to not cross paths, or kind of like they’re gonna cross paths, but then all of a sudden show you that they’re definitely not crossing paths with you.

That just childish, infantile crap that you have to put up with, those are some things that you need to recognize, because if it’s going on in your business or in your team, then you should be doing something about this, right?

Even if it’s going on in your family, there’s something that you should be doing about this.

So the reason why it’s important to recognize these early on is because you can actually prevent small issues from escalating into major conflicts, which they absolutely can and most likely will do.

And if they do that, they’re going to impact team morale. Right? If you can maintain the team morale by handling the small stuff early on, you will save yourself and your team a lot of struggles. Right?

Also going to ensure that your team will be able to stay productive and keep a positive work environment. Because once it starts to go south, let me tell you, it goes south.

It is one of those things where you will see team members really starting to struggle, team members distancing themselves.

Some team members may not put in as much effort because the experience that they’re getting from another person, there’s all kinds of junk that can happen if you don’t do this correctly, if you don’t do this early and often.

So I initially gave some of these passive-aggressive behaviors. I want to take a little bit of a deep dive into just a couple of them that I think you may be experiencing at work.

And the first one of those, again, is we’re back to procrastination. You know, somebody who’s most likely delaying tasks to express frustration indirectly. Right?

So an example of this would be someone who’s consistently missing deadlines or somebody who is delaying projects without clear reasons.

So one of the things that you need to do is you need to be looking at the timelines that are being set.

So we often assume that we hire somebody, they’re going to be mature enough to do the job, they’re going to handle things correctly, and then all of a sudden, we start to realize something is not going well.

This is why it’s incredibly important that you put in accountability everywhere inside of your business.

Right. If you don’t have accountability to timelines, if you don’t have accountability to when projects should be done, when they should be worked on, which aspects of the project need to get done first?

What part of the project is waiting on somebody else to get done? If you don’t have these pieces in place, then what you’ll discover is it’s very easy for somebody to sabotage this process.

It is very easy for somebody to delay and have kind of crazy reasons, kind of lame reasons, things that you’re like that just, you know, they have a reason, and I hear what they’re saying, but that shouldn’t be holding things up.

Well, then there’s a really good chance that this is deliberate. If you have accountability in place, then you can actually run through their excuses.

You can talk through it, you can work with them and say, you know, help me to understand. This is one of the things that you will hear me say a lot.

Help me to understand why this isn’t getting done right. And that’s what’s going to draw out a lot of the so-called excuses.

And when you hear them, chances are you’re going to find that there’s a lot of passive-aggressive behavior behind their answers.

Well, you know, it wouldn’t have been a problem if so and so would have done such and such when they were supposed to. Oh, okay. So we obviously have some attitude here.

You know, that’s going to be an indicator. If you have the accountability in place, then that will allow you to get to these issues faster when things are, let’s say we’ve set a good timeline.

A timeline is accountability, folks. A timeline is a measurement. This is when we should have this done by, we’ve taken into account all the other things you’re working on.

You know, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t hit this. You’ve agreed that you could get this done, but now all of a sudden, I see that we’re not hitting it right. The whole project is being held up because you haven’t done your part.

Why are you not doing your part? And I will say another reason behind a lot of this is wanting to look like the hero, right, or wanting to stay in control.

So we talked about a lot of procrastination sometimes as somebody controlling the pace of something so that they don’t have to speed up. Sometimes if they, you know, lock up a project, then they’re the ones you have to call on to go solve the project.

It’s just craziness right inside somebody’s mind that they think that this is the right thing to do. This is a smart thing to do because what it does is it starts to show that this is somebody who can’t be trusted.

It shows, you know, somebody who thinks I’m doing such a smart thing by holding up this project.

What it does is over time, it gets you to start to realize, I shouldn’t put this person in such important things because they keep affecting things in a negative way.

So if you find somebody who’s consistently missing deadlines, if you find somebody who appears to be delaying projects without quality reasons. Right.

When you hear their reasons, if they’re lame, if they’re victim mentality, if they’re throwing other people under the bus, we have a problem.

We’ll address that in a minute. Another area is that sarcasm. Now, I will say, I love sarcasm. I have to be careful with my sarcasm because sometimes my sarcasm sounds real.

You know, I might make a joke about something and somebody will take that and be offended by it, and they think, oh, gosh, he really means I’m like, no, no, no. It’s literally a joke.

No, you totally meant that. No, I. Sorry. It sounded funny to me. It’s only because I have a really crappy sense of humor. Like I say, I think I’m funny, but sometimes I’m not.

It depends. I play really well in Michigan, so my friends up there, they have that same type of sarcasm. And so we can play off each other for many hours. It just depends on where you are. Right?

This is not what, this bad sense of humor is not what I’m talking about. What I am talking about is somebody who’s, I don’t know, maybe making, you know, taunting statements or ridiculing somebody.

Or, you know, again, those backhanded compliments that seem to undermine team members. Right. The key is, is the sarcasm undermining.

Again, sometimes I will say something and realize, oh, crap, that sounded bad. And I have to pull it back and say, I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant.

What I’m talking about is the person who’s looking to undermine. Right. The person who’s making comments about how people are working.

The person who is, you know, maybe talking about how somebody is not doing a good enough job or. Well, I see that you put so and so on over there.

That’s gonna fail. All those little comments, those little nit-picky, sarcastic comments, those are something you have to be looking for.

Now, keep in mind the caveat here is that sometimes people are just having a bad day.

Just because somebody makes those sarcastic types of comments doesn’t mean that this is somebody who is passive-aggressively trying to destroy your business or your team. It could be somebody’s having a sucky day.

What you will usually find, if it’s not somebody who is intentionally doing this, then what you’ll find is remorse, right. That has been me throughout my life of recognizing, oops, that that wasn’t funny.

That sounded funny in my head, but that person received that badly. So I will have a tendency to go, I’m so sorry. How did you just receive that?

Because I could see that didn’t come off well. So again, that’s not what we’re looking for. We’re looking for the person who you can tell is trying to affect somebody in a negative way if they’ve been having a bad day.

I can tell you, everybody I know has sarcastic, painful comments when their day sucks out loud. You know, think about it.

You have probably had a thousand days where, you know, you’ve just had a bad day and you make a comment and you don’t realize how that hurts somebody.

That just flying out of your mouth affected somebody in a negative way. But that’s probably not the norm. Hopefully that’s not the norm for you, right?

That you’re doing that because your intention is to hurt some. There’s a difference in saying something, not wanting to hurt somebody, not even thinking about it, but just being in a bad attitude and deliberately wanting to hurt somebody.

The other piece that I wanted to kind of dig a little bit deeper on was that silent treatment. And again, this is one, all of these are childish, right?

This one is just, it just seems even more child. This is super childish. That withholding communication as a form of control.

You know, you could find that somebody is absolutely doing everything they can to ignore team members, that they’re refusing to communicate.

And especially, it’s one thing when they’re refusing to communicate information, period. What is the message? They’re trying to say, you need to come to me.

I’m giving you the silent treatment. And here’s what they’re doing. It’s, believe it or not, it’s a level of narcissism. They’re pressing boundaries, right?

What they’re trying to do is they’re trying to press on you to see where you’re going to move in their direction. If they can get you to move in their direction, then in their mind, they’re winning.

And don’t be surprised if they take it even further. Maybe not that time, but they will some other time. The key is you have to recognize when somebody is literally not communicating intentionally when somebody’s not giving information.

If we were to look at it in personality styles, a lot of times a very immature high d is going to hold back information because they don’t want somebody to, I don’t know, be more successful in that area or show them up or something.

I’m talking about very immature. I’m not talking about mature ids. You can see that another time might be, you know, different personality styles may have forgotten information.

Oh, I didn’t realize that I was supposed to share that information, and, you know, that they actually had that information.

So as you look at the different personality styles, you can start to pick out by personality style how they withhold information and dig into why.

Why are you not sharing this? Right. So we’ll. We’ll. Again, we’ll solve that here in just a little bit.

The key is that the impact of these, these different behaviors and these different types of passive aggressiveness are going to blow up your team dynamics if they are left alone.

If you don’t do something about this, you are going to see a huge impact on your team’s productivity. Why?

Well, think about it. Do you want to work in that environment? You know, are you somebody who wants to work around a person who just appears to be a jerk because they won’t communicate with you?

They’re, you know, they’re always giving you the silent treatment there. When they do talk to you, they make sarcastic remarks. Nobody wants to work around that, right?

So it’s not hard to see that if one team member or a whole team is being impacted by this passive aggressiveness, that you’re going to start to see your productivity drop.

Now, as I’ve said, that there’s a handful of you out there that are going, oh, crud. That’s what’s happening right now. My team is experiencing that right now because I have this person or multiple people that are doing that same thing. Okay?

This is where you start recognizing. Take a look through your entire team, and if you can’t do that, you know, and. Or your leadership team needs to do this as well.

If you’re leading a team of leaders, you need to be looking through the entire team and asking yourself, where do we see passive-aggressive behavior? Where do we see toxicity?

Where do we see trust eroding among team members or maybe it’s between team members and leaders, or leaders and team members, right? Where do we see collaboration and efficiency just being destroyed in this process? If we see these things?

Obviously, accountability jumps in and solves the problem. But what you may discover is an underlying passive-aggressive team member, or maybe you’ve got even more than one, God forbid.

Hopefully you don’t. Hopefully you don’t even have one. But if you do, then what are we going to do about it?

Strategies for Addressing Passive-Aggressive Behavior (00:18:44)

So let’s talk through some strategies for addressing the passive-aggressive behavior.

So first thing is, um, when you are communicating with someone, uh, who might not realize that they’re being passive-aggressive, there’s, there’s a possibility, let’s, let’s think the best of people, there is a possibility that they don’t realize that they’re being passive-aggressive.

So when you do, I’m always going to start off with statements like, help me to understand, right?

Help me to understand this comment or help me to understand why you haven’t passed that information on, or help me to understand. It appears as though you’re throwing barbs out at, you know, Frank over here.

Why is that? Help me to understand. And that usually does a really good job of pulling information to the surface so that you can dig in and find out what’s going on.

Rarely do you hear me telling you to make I statements, the letter I talking about me me statements. Rarely do you hear me tell you to do this.

However this can be, it can be a good place if it doesn’t just sound totally selfish and self centered.

This can be a good place of where you start implementing I statements to help them to recognize what they’re doing.

Something like, you know, hey, I’m finding myself being concerned when deadlines are missed because it obviously affects our project timeline.

And you’re one of those people, or you’re the person who tends to be holding up those project deadlines. So I am getting concerned about this. I’m struggling with. I don’t understand why.

Now, again, that’s not something that I’m going to tell you to do a ton, but here it puts a certain pressure on that person to recognize that they are actually being, you know, somewhat found out that somebody is recognizing the problem that’s happening and it’s probably not getting addressed the way that they want.

What do they want? They want you to address it with, hey, what’s the problem? So that they can tell you all the things that are wrong. That’s the goal of somebody who’s being passive-aggressive.

They want to be able to lay out all the people they want to throw under the bus and the people that they want to blame for all this crap. Right.

But when you go at it from the, hey, I’m concerned that you’re not keeping up with the project deadlines, then all of a sudden the responsibility is getting dumped back on them.

Now doesn’t mean that they’re not going to try and throw somebody under the bus. They probably will. So expect it again. Watch it like a movie.

Recognize where they’re going, what they’re trying to accomplish. Don’t get handcuffed to the content of what they’re saying. Instead, look at what they’re doing so that you know how to respond.

But when you, when you say, I’m struggling with I’m concerned, then that’s putting it back on them pretty darn quickly.

And if they recognize that, uh, you know, you aren’t going to put up with this very long, then you may see them backpedal. It may be the very thing that starts to drive them back into, oh, crud, I shouldn’t be doing this now.

That could solve the problem. Initially, if this is a small issue, that could solve the problem. What I want you to do is watch, though. I want you to pay attention.

Does it just cause them to point their passive-aggressiveness in a different direction? Do they just start pointing it at different people?

I have had many times in my 30+ years that I’ve seen somebody not be willing to let go, that they just self-sabotage all the way down into sabotaging themselves out of the business because they refused to stop being passive-aggressive, or they refused to stop picking on somebody, or they refused to stop throwing barbs out.

They refused to change of their attitude. Why? Because in their minds, their problem hasn’t been resolved yet. Their issue hasn’t been resolved.

And instead of being mature enough to go on and get over themselves, they double down and sometimes triple down. And unfortunately, it tends to cause them to, you know, either be fired or be pressured so much with accountability that eventually they realize, I’ve got to get out of here.

I can’t. I can’t stay here because I’m going to get fired if I don’t. So definitely something you need to be looking for.

Now, another thing you can do is be very specific with your examples and help somebody kind of encourage self-awareness by pointing out specific incidences. This is something that I have no problem doing.

This is one of my first go-tos is, hey, what happened when you did this? You know, I noticed you made a sarcastic comment during the team meeting, which seemed to upset everybody or a few people in the meeting.

Help me to understand why you said that, or help me to understand why you chose to say that. I don’t have a problem going straight after that comment.

And the reason why is because here’s what I’ve learned as a high S, as somebody who spent, you know, the first half of his life decently submissive, as somebody who, you know, has been, you know, in abusive situations, controlling situations, all kinds of crap, here’s one of the things I’ve learned over the years, that if you just ask, hey, how are you doing?

Hey, you know, how are you feeling right now?  Then you’re probably going to get a big mouthful of just junk thrown at you, right?

But when you call out what somebody did and you’re able to stay calm and you’re able to act, you know, confident without being controlling, but you’re also not acting super submissive.

You’re just being, hey, I noticed you made this comment right here, this sarcastic.

And use, you know, if it’s a sarcastic comment, use the word sarcastic comment, right? If it’s controlling, whatever it is, make sure that you describe what it is. Define what it is.

Hey, I noticed you made this sarcastic comment to Jody during the team meeting, and obviously it upset her. I’m wondering, why did you choose to do that? Why did you choose that comment? What, you know, what were you experiencing at that time?

And just stop talking and let them begin to talk. What you may find is if it’s somebody who doesn’t realize that they did something wrong, great.

They’re going to be shocked. Surprised. Oh, my gosh. I didn’t even realize that. You’re so right. I shouldn’t have done that. But if they are somebody who knows exactly what they did, then the defense shields are going up.

Uh, they’re gonna respond harshly. They’re gonna respond with, well, so and so, or Jody did this, and, well, I don’t know why you’re calling me out on that one.

You didn’t say anything about the time when she did. You know, you’ll all of a sudden start to see all this defensiveness come out, right? And that’s just crap.

So if you were able to get them to, I don’t know, maturely talk about the comment, if at all possible, then great. You’re probably gonna get this solved immediately.

If you see a bunch of defensiveness, if you see a bunch of, you know, throwing people under the bus, then you have a different route. You have to go now.

You have to solve what this person is struggling with and you have to solve their behavior with it. You know, what does it look like to do that? We’ll kind of, we’ll talk about that in a little bit.

But what do you do when somebody knows what somebody is absolutely sure they’re being passive-aggressive? What do you do? Right.

Again, in the beginning, we want to, we’re hoping they don’t recognize it. We’re asking questions, trying to draw it out to see if they’re recognizing how they’re acting and how they’re behaving.

When we find out that they are definitely sure, you know, when, when they come back with that defensiveness, when they don’t even acknowledge that there was a problem with something that they said, then they know that they’re being passive-aggressive.

This is where you need to set clear expectations and absolutely outline what is acceptable behavior and what consequences come with recurring issues. Right?

Recurring bad behavior. You have to be clear. This is something that is unacceptable. Now, as we go into this, I want you to think about this. Are they going to have the ability to throw it right back in your face and go, well, you did it Tuesday.

Again, there’s definitely a problem with that type of comment. We need to handle that type of comment. The thing I’m asking, so if they did that, obviously you need to push into that comment of how they’re talking to their leader.

But the thing that I’m saying is, are you doing it? Are you somebody who’s passive-aggressive? Are they picking up on what you’re doing and they’re doing it as well?

If so, then this is going to blow up in your face because it’s all of a sudden going to be a, oh, wow, you’re super hypocritical. Apparently it’s okay for you to do it, but it’s not okay for anybody else to do it. Right?

Which is going to take you down a completely different path. Let’s say you’re not. Let’s assume that you’re not because you listen to the show and you do a great job leading.

So let’s assume that you’re not. Then you need to make sure that you’re setting clear expectations. You need to make sure that they understand this is 1000% unacceptable.

We don’t talk to people like that. We don’t make comments like that. Right. So you might say something like, we need to maintain respectful communication.

So if you continue to be sarcastic in that form, then it’s going to lead to more of a formal discussion. If you continue, then there will be a formal write-up in your permanent file.

But listen, if you can’t be respectful in your communication, we’re going to be having this conversation again very soon. It’s expected that you respect people around here.

It’s expected that you treat people well. If you can’t treat an internal client well, then I wonder what you’re going to do with an external client, somebody who’s paying us.

So this is a must. You’re not going to do this anymore. If you do, then we’re going to have a problem. We’re gonna have a formal write-up here.

We’re gonna have some formal discussions, which are probably gonna lead to formal write-ups in your permanent file. And if it continues, then obviously we just won’t need you here because our culture is more important than any one person.

Now, what is the issue? Make sure that you’re clear with what you’re expecting so you don’t have to even get to, why did you do it? That’s not even that important.

If the person knows they’re being passive-aggressive. Instead, call out the thing they’re doing. This is unacceptable. You don’t get to do this, right? You can do that and then get to. Now what are you struggling with?

Because obviously you’re struggling with something, but if you can get it out early, I’m not allowing this on my team. I’m not allowing this in my business.

And be stern about it, then you’re going to find. So in my, again, 30 plus years of doing this, I usually find one of two things. One, the person recognizes. Oh, crud. I’ve got myself over my head. I’m. This is not a good place to be.

I don’t feel so very secure with my sarcasm right now. You know, I thought that I was in control, but I don’t feel so in control. I better, you know, suck it up and better stop.

Chris is serious, so I better stop this, or unfortunately, I hope you don’t deal with this. These are just ridiculous situations and they never last. The other thing is, is that you set clear expectations and they double down.

If they’re going to double down. If they’re going to continue and just, you know, really ramp it up, then this is where you need to hold that person accountable so fast right now.

Oh, but, Chris, what if they’re dealing with something terrible? I have no problem with somebody experiencing something bad in their life. I have no problem with that thing affecting them in a personal way.

What I have a problem with is after I have called you out and I’ve explained to you that this is unacceptable, that you continue, that you continue to pound home whatever the issue is that you’re experiencing or, you know, try to convince people that they are, you know, that they’re idiots or they’re not good enough or whatever because you’re struggling with something.

So for me, it’s very clear, you stop this right now or we’re going to have problems. Now, now that I’ve made that.

Do you understand? Do you understand what I’m saying? Yes. Okay, good. Now that I’ve made that clear, how can I help?

But what I don’t want to do is if I’ve got somebody who is, and again, keep in mind the situation here, it’s somebody who knows they’re being passive-aggressive.

It’s somebody who’s been called out, and it’s somebody who’s definitely doubling down in this situation. Right. That’s when we’re pressing in.

If it’s somebody who recognizes we already went through that, we handle it differently.

So make sure that you’re emphasizing the communication by encouraging accountability, by encouraging transparency, by saying things like, hey, listen, if you have concerns with this person or if you have concerns with maybe somebody’s doing something wrong or they’re, you know, maybe they’re holding you up or whatever the thing is.

Right. If you have concerns, please address those directly with me. That way we can talk through them. Right. Or your direct leader. Right.

Instead of going on the attack, because that’s never going to solve the problem. And instead, now we have two people that are struggling, or we may have a whole team because everybody around the table experienced it. Right?

So make sure that you’re addressing those with the leader. If you can’t do it nicely, if you, if there’s a struggle and you feel like you’re going to respond in a ill-tempered way towards a team member or towards a team, don’t hold yourself back. Right?

Come to your direct leader and discuss it with them. Right. If that’s your only option, if you feel like that’s coming on, because what’s going to happen is if you continue to do this, you’re not going to be able to be here any longer.

But if you’re willing to temper yourself and regulate yourself and take control of yourself, then great, fantastic. You’re doing a great job. We’d love to have you here.

Just understand that this piece is unacceptable. So there are things that you can do to make sure that you’re plugging in that accountability.

You’re absolutely making it transparent. This is how we feel. This is what we want you to do. So that if it happens again, guess what?

Here comes the help me to understand statement. Hey, help me to understand. We talked about this. I told you exactly what you needed to do. I told you exactly what is unacceptable.

We had this discussion, and yet here’s the comment that I just experienced, or here’s the comment that your team leader said. You said, or, you know, whatever. Here’s. So I’m really disappointed that we’re here again because I thought we discussed this.

So help me to understand, why is this continuing to happen? Why are you choosing to continue to make these types of comments?

So this is something I know a lot of you high S’s out there, maybe some of you c’s as well as I’m talking through this, you’re just like, oh my gosh, I could never do this. Yes, you can. I’m an 88S. Yes, you can do this.

You can do it. Because what you’re doing is you’re shutting down the action, not the content.

If you focus on the content, you’ll find yourself in a ridiculous conversation, argument, debate with a person who just continues to deflect you to different areas because they’re really good at doing this.

If you focus on what they did and keep bringing them back to what they did and having a problem with what they did, then you get to hold them accountable.

And it’s, you know, you’re not having to receive this as though you’re potentially a bad person. They’re the ones who did it. You had something in place that said don’t do it.

Now you’re calling them out again, plain and simple. Now, some of you out there don’t understand why that’s a problem, because you don’t struggle with that.

Well, a lot of people do. A lot of people do have that issue with that conflict, and that’s a concern that they’re going to be able to do this.

If you put the accountability in place, this will not be nearly as difficult as you think.

If you don’t put the accountability in place and you try to have some sort of conversation with this person or try to debate them on whether or not they’re right or wrong, you’ll probably end up losing in this.

And then 2 hours later go, oh, crud, I should have said all these things that Chris said. I should have remembered those things. Don’t waste your time on that right.

Focus on what I’m saying right now. Put the accountability in place, and then call out the thing that’s going against, the thing that you set up, the comments, the procrastinating, whatever it is.

Call that piece out the thing that they’re doing. Yeah, well, they said this, this and this, and I didn’t know what to say. Because you’re focused on the content of what they’re saying.

If you always respond to the content, then it will be easy for that person to guide and direct you into 14 different paths.

If you focus on the thing they’re doing and you keep bringing them back, then you can actually stop them from, you know, misdirecting you somewhere else and go, oh, I’m only talking about this thing right here.

Okay, this is what I’m talking about. The sarcastic comment that you made. This is the comment that you made. I wrote it down myself.

You know, here, help me to understand why this happened. I’m really disappointed. If you keep bringing them back to that, then they will really, really struggle to avoid answering you.

Folks, if you’ve been listening to me for any length of time, then you know the number one issue when it comes to business, when it comes to family, when it comes to friendships, is having a lack of high-quality communication to make sure that you are absolutely winning in every aspect of your life.

It all starts with having great communication.

The best way to get that communication is to understand your personality style and to understand the personality style of the folks that you’re spending the most time with, whether it be at work, whether it be at home.

The best way to do that is to go to chrislocurto.com/store and get your personality profile and personality profiles for your team today. Get it for your family members today.

As you go through that profile, you will begin to see the greatest ways to communicate. Go to chrislocurto.com/store today.

Mindset Tips for Leaders (00:39:02)

So here are some mindset tips that leaders need to have when you are preparing for this conversation. No matter what your personality style is, it doesn’t matter if you’re a high D.

You might be going in a little hot under the collar. Man, I’m really pissed off that this person said something and I’m ready to put them in their place.

Don’t do that. If you’re a high S and you’re struggling with the conflict and, you know, you’re, you’re afraid that, that they’re going to, you know, just word whip you into a frenzy and you’re not going to know what to say.

Don’t do that. Don’t worry about that. Don’t focus on that. First thing you need to do is you need to start out by trying to have as much empathy as you possibly can.

Try to understand what the underlying issue is. Now, again, if they know what they’re doing and you see that, you can always start with, that is unacceptable and that’s not going to happen. I’m telling you right now.

Do you understand? You know, set that clear expectation, but then try to understand what they’re going through. Hey, man, I understand that, you know, work can be stressful. Personal life can be stressful.

Let’s kind of talk about ways that you can handle this without responding that way. How do, how can we handle the concerns that you have so that it keeps you from being passive-aggressive?

What does that even look like? Right? What can we do? So, by doing so, I’m recognizing, you know, if it’s somebody who doesn’t know they’re being passive-aggressive, I didn’t have to put the big hard expectation.

I just go straight to the fix. If it’s somebody who does recognize, put the clear expectation in place and then I’m still going to go to understanding what they’re, or trying to understand what they’re experiencing. Right?

I understand work is stressful. Life is stressful, whatever their answer was. But what can we do to help you not struggle like this at work? What can we do to help you have better responses now.

You have to stay calm. You have to concentrate on what they’re doing. You have to concentrate on the behavior, not necessarily the person. Right?

Because again, if you don’t, even somebody who’s not intending to do so can get you thoroughly distracted with some other comment that has nothing to do with what you experienced, that that takes you completely away from the comment that they made to that person in that meeting somewhere. Right?

So stay calm. You know, things you can say are, hey, listen, this happened. It’s done and over with. Now let’s kind of focus on improving our communication going forward.

You know, I do want you to go and apologize to so and so and make sure that they understand how sorry you are for that situation. But it’s done and over with. Let’s move forward.

What can we do by doing that that helps that person realize that you are treating them with dignity, that you’re done. You don’t want this to continue.

You don’t want to see any more of this and that you’re being a really good person, that you’re not giving them a heavy-duty consequence right in that moment. Right?

That instead, yes, they know they screwed up. Yes, they know they should not have done something, but that you’re treating them with grace and, you know, you’re giving them the opportunity to move forward.

If they see that you’ve been confident in this process while staying calm, then they probably are going to realize that they’re not going to have many more opportunities to do this, that you’re not going to hold them heavily accountable or give them consequences for their actions.

So become, you know, treat them with dignity and then try and let’s get past this thing with good consequences. You have to go apologize to so and so whatever is needed.

When you do these things, then you’re going to see that the health of your environment is going to be decently maintained. Right. The culture is going to be decently maintained.

If you allow these things to continue, you’re going to discover your culture degrades rapidly. Your morale, your team morale degrades rapidly. Your productivity is going to degrade rapidly.

But if you will do this and you will focus on protecting your culture over one individual. Right?

That’s the key, is, listen, I want to help every individual as much as I can, but if you’re going to continue to screw up this culture, then I have to know that I’m going to have to protect the culture over you.

I like you. You’re a good person, but I’m not going to lose my culture to one individual. Right. It’s just ridiculous. And the last thing I want is everybody else in my team thinking, well, Chris isn’t doing anything about that.

Apparently, he doesn’t care about us. Apparently, we can start slinging, you know, sarcastic remarks at people because he’s not doing anything with, you know, Joe, who just did that.

So the more that you focus on addressing the passive-aggressive behavior, the greater your culture will be maintained.

It will even eventually become some level of self-policing that when we see people make comments like that, your team will have seen leadership respond a specific way.

They will start to respond a specific way. Hey, man, that is totally not okay. That’s not okay to talk to so and so that way, or, hey, that’s not okay to talk to me that way.

Maybe they’ll, you know, to be an individual who’ll be able to push back and say, hey, that’s unacceptable. So if you want to talk to me like a human being, you can do so, but, you know, I’m done with this conversation.

Until we can have a mature conversation or whatever it takes, it can become self-policing. If you’ve done this well in the culture just maintains that, hey, we don’t talk to people that way.

And again, I’m focusing on the sarcastic comments, but it could be the other passive-aggressive behaviors that I talked about as well.

When you do this, it also promotes accountability because then you’re going to see people are going to take responsibility for their actions.

People are going to take responsibility for their behaviors when they know they can’t get away with it, when they know somebody’s going to call them out, when they know they’re going to be embarrassed because they can’t control the person who’s calling them out.

When they know that some level of consequence is coming, then you will start to see them take responsibility for their actions and behaviors. And if they don’t, then you don’t want to keep that person in your culture. Right?

So if they don’t, if they, again, if they double down, then it’s nothing long before they’re no longer going to be working for you. Oh, but what if it’s somebody super important to me, Chris?

Whoa, whoa, whoa. How can any one individual who’s treating people that way be super important? Well, they’re my salesperson and they bring a lot of money in. Okay.

Does the rest of your team not support the sale that was created? So tell me what’s more important, a sale coming in the door or the whole team that makes that sale happen? Right?

Or the whole team that makes that sale even possible? So do not. And unfortunately, I’ve had to have this conversation with a lot of folks that have a good salesperson who has a really bad attitude.

Do not destroy your culture. Do not sacrifice your culture for a sale or for many sales. Instead, solve the problem. Most likely what you’re going to find is that person’s going to fall in line.

You know, probably more than not. But there are going to be some times you end up losing somebody.

Oh, well, I would rather get the person out of the building who’s being a colossal jerk than keep this going on and I lose my team. I don’t want my culture to change.

Consequences of Not Addressing Passive-Aggressive Behavior (00:47:10)

So what happens if we don’t address passive-aggressive behavior? I will give you one big word, stress. Let me give you a different one. Chaos.

If you do not do something about this, then you risk chaos. You definitely risk stress. Right. You’re going to have increased tension in your team, probably in you. There’s going to be increased conflict.

You know, whenever you do not address bad behavior, it’s almost always. Almost always going to lead to bigger conflicts. It’s definitely going to lead to reduced trust.

It’s definitely going to lead to reduced respect. So failing to address these issues can absolutely destroy your trust. Respect for not only each other but definitely for the leadership.

Think about it. If I’m a champion, I’m saying I don’t even have to be a champion. If I’m just a halfway decent worker sitting on your team and you are not doing anything about this person on our team, then you lose my respect.

Obviously, we don’t matter to you. You’re not solving the problem, so don’t allow that to happen. Make sure you’re jumping on it. If you don’t do it, you’re obviously going to lose morale.

And, my goodness, the level of productivity tanks. When you have a toxic environment, it absolutely demotivates team members, and then they just don’t want to work as hard.

What you’ll find is that they will work as much as they need to to get a paycheck, which in my years, that equates to about 50%. You will find that people feel like they can get away with doing half the work and still gain a paycheck.

So if this is all happening inside of your team, inside of your business, then you’re paying twice the amount of money for your team members that are stuck in this crap, right? Jump on it early.

If you’re somebody who hates conflict, let me tell you, it is better to rip the band-aid off now than to allow this thing to continue and fester, and then it just becomes a much bigger issue down the road.

Get it done early, get it done often, and you will be blown away at how much it maintains your culture, it maintains positive attitudes.

If you don’t do it, it’s going to be a freaking mountain that you have to climb because it’s going to be so many, you know, consistent issues that you’re now having to deal with because it didn’t get solved early on.

So I want you to go back and I want you to check out some episodes that we did.

Check out Episode 218, which is How to Deal with a Passive-Aggressive Leader and Stop People-Pleasing. So we discussed the why. Why are they being passive-aggressive?

And there’s something going on with this person that’s, you know, that they’re experiencing something. We talk about those things in that episode.

So maybe they’re struggling with, you know, something involving family, a team member. Maybe they’re struggling with something that involves you.

So go and check out that episode, episode 218. So folks, listen. Tackling passive-aggressive behavior at work is key to keeping a positive and productive team environment.

So by recognizing these behaviors early, communicating clearly, preparing beforehand, you know, for those tough conversations, you can absolutely transform your workplace dynamics for the better.

So don’t shy away from these challenges. Face them head-on to benefit your team and to benefit your business.

Well, folks, so glad you joined us today. That’s all the time that we’ve got. Hopefully, this information is helping you or has helped you, and it’s going to help you in the future.

That’s what we want. As always, take this information, change your leadership, change your business, change your life, and join us on the next episode.