What Can you Do With the Disengaged, Confrontational, Under-producing Employee that Cannot be Terminated?
When facilitating our Advantexe Business Leadership development workshops I often say that the
This morning, to help share and stimulate application of our leadership content, one of our participants described a nightmare leadership situation that is causing him stress, anxiety, and taking the fun out of his job.
“I was named Manager of this small group of IT professionals in June. We had 9 people on the team the day I started and was told to narrow it down to 7 within 30 days to save costs. Within the first 30 days I had 6 of the team members voluntarily leave for either early retirement or other opportunities within the organization, leaving me with just 3 to start with. Knowing that I better fill the jobs quickly – for fear of more slots being eliminated – I hired 4 new people from the outside to create what I thought was a great balance.
“I have been blind-sided by Christina. My leadership style is hands-off. I give people the room they need to do their jobs, provide feedback when appropriate, and facilitate a collaborative team environment. Christina has been negative, confrontational, and completely unproductive since day one. My feeling is that she thought she should have been given my job as leader of the team and she comes to work angry every day. I have tried to coach her, have open conversations with her, give her stretch assignments, and a ton of other things to motivate her. Nothing has worked. Worse yet, she acts as if she can’t be terminated because our company is very litigation-adverse and avoids potential age discrimination cases at all costs. I would love to just terminate her which I can’t, or move her to another department which won’t happen because everyone knows that she is a potential cancer to any team. I am at a complete loss and if I can’t figure this out, I am going to leave because this terrible experience has left me demoralized and discouraged.”
This is clearly a painful, demoralizing leadership scenario. Based on research, best practices, and our own experiences, I have shared three things that you can do to coach more effectively and three things you can do to save your sanity.
Effectively Coaching the Disengaged, Confrontational, Under-producing Employee
Things to Save Your Sanity in a Difficult Leadership Situation
Be positive in nature, don’t stress, and don’t engage. In addition, document everything. Send the employee emails with goals and objectives, document coaching situations and conversations, and send HR and others documentation about confrontations and dysfunctional behaviors.