Office Communication - Bullies and Doormats

The people leaders within an organization are the ones who create the environment and culture that the employees work within. While they may not be the ones who set or create the company rules, they are the ones who help employees navigate within them and strive towards a balance that works for both the company and the employees. How your leaders communicate with their employees can make all the difference between how an employee feels about their work and the company.

This is often the aspect of leadership that new leaders struggle with the most. They aren’t sure how to approach difficult situations, so they go overboard and come across to harshly, or they are worried about being liked, so they come across as not really agreeing with what they are saying.

Unfortunately, most companies don’t have training or discussions about this aspect of their leadership skills, and that’s too bad when simply having discussions with the leaders and helping them to be aware of what they are or aren’t doing can assist new leaders to make changes that will serve them (and the company) well throughout their careers.

There are many different communication styles, but most of them can be broken down into these four basic categories:

1. Aggressive (Buford the Office Bully)
2. Passive (Dora the Office Doormat)
3. Passive-Aggressive (Wishy-Washy Wilma)
4. Assertive (Derrick Direct)

The first three communication styles can all have negative impacts on your company culture. And if it is bad enough, your leaders will actually be driving attrition within their teams.

1. Aggressive Communicators: are often seen as bullies, or dictators. It is their way or the highway, they are hard to please, treat people poorly, and their limited effectiveness is due to people are afraid of them, not because they respect them. Situations are often resolved using anger, and intimidation. Employees fear being the next person who will be belittled, picked on, or fired.
2. Passive Communicators: are often seen as a push-over or as a doormat. They often let stronger members of their team rule the roost, and just seem to go along with what the team decides. These leaders are liked because they are nice to everyone, however, they aren’t respected because they don’t set and enforce boundaries with their team. They have a hard time dealing with any type of conflict, and would rather avoid it than deal with it. (They may let inappropriate behavior go on for a long time.)
3. Passive – Aggressive Communicators: are the most difficult communicators to understand. They flip back and forth between being passive and then without understanding why, they seem to suddenly flip out and become very angry and upset. Passive-Aggressive communications are mostly passive communicators who aren’t sure how to communicate well when they have to discipline people. So they go along appearing as if everything is fine until something (and it may be small) pushes them to the edge of what they can tolerate, and then they blow up. They are the least honest communicators, as they rarely provide direct and honest feedback due to not wanting to hurt someone’s feelings.
4. Assertive Communicators: are very honest and direct with their people. They set clear expectations, and expect their people to adhere to the rules and meet their goals. They recognize and praise their people for doing a good job. They also let their team know if they have done something inappropriate and coach or discipline individuals accordingly. Assertive communicators are usually well liked because they continuously let their team members know how they are doing, and they create a safe environment for communicating two directions, and they are fair as possible in their dealings with employees. They look for the win-win solutions as much as possible.

If you were a phone agent, which leader would you want to interact with?