Fighting the Cancer of a Recklessly Negative Attitude

One of the strangest laws of attraction exists in the workplace.

It’s simply astonishing how quickly the lowest performers find each other. They seek each other out for validation, effectively forming a cabal of complaints and grievances.

Over time, their dissatisfaction and negativity with the culture and leadership spill over to anyone who will listen. They expand their troop by bad-mouthing leadership to their peers who have yet to find their own way.

Once this group begins to grow, some team members begin to choose to defend their peers (who they often can’t tell are underperforming) rather than understand where the dissatisfaction really comes from.

The influence of negative commentary by this growing group on the newest team members and those on the cusp of mildly underperforming can be profound.

By infecting others with their conspiracy theories and complaints, they build a wall of support around themselves, which is hard for leaders to break through. Terminating a single culprit is often viewed as evidence of the high-handedness that the disaffected tell everyone about.

That’s why it is important for leaders to address a single negative performer with a poor attitude before they convert others.

The problem often spins out of control when leaders are too patient by continuing to coach these malcontents up. While investing in the skills and talents of low performers who are working hard to improve and prove themselves is exactly what good leaders do, tolerating low skill coupled with a poor attitude is a recipe for disaster.

A low-performing team member with a negative attitude is a cancer that can spread quickly and destroy the positivity of a team or culture.

The dilemma for many leaders is what to do about a single team member who has become jaded by criticism and poor results and has adopted a negative attitude about the workplace.

Fighting the instinct to fix the attitude with support, coaching, and investment is critical. If an attitude is a decision, then those who mindfully make a bad one seldom revoke it. Especially when they are failing.

Slow-walking an agitator’s departure is a common mistake made by optimistic leaders.

In most cases, these malcontent underperformers blame everyone but themselves, choosing to double down on the practices (or lack thereof) that got them to this point in the first place. All the while telling everyone how horrible you are.

To protect the team and culture, the leader must make a hard decision in the short run to preserve the long run. The key is to show this dissident the door before they affect others.

Negative attitudes are exceedingly difficult to change. Letting them run wild is what good leaders can’t do. The best leaders make the hard call before it’s too late.

If there are now two low performers with a negative attitude, the leader didn’t act fast enough.