Canadian HR Reporter

4 www.hrreporter.com N E W S well then, that's more information you can use. Now, do you still want to hire them?" Keeping tabs on performance To combat the potential for toxic leader- ship, the assessments shouldn't end after hiring. Continuous performance reviews are critical, which means regular 360-degree reviews, says Brown. "You need to go out there and talk to the team… and to work with your leader and to be hearing things as a manager, as a director of a board about a toxic workplace or mistreating people or being dishonest or inconsistent or gossiping or whatever is leading to that toxicity." Then leadership should sit down with that individual and let them know what they're hearing ― while hearing their version of events, he says. "There's always two sides to the story and maybe somebody's sabotaging that individual, who knows, but communi- cation is absolutely crucial to either cap this before it gets out of hand or to put a stop to it or to move that person out of the organization." If the toxic behaviour is flagged early enough, it may just be a matter of increasing that individual's self-aware- ness and understanding the implications of their behaviour, says Jonas. "If that person does seem to be recep- tive to the feedback and open to their own development and coaching, there's a much greater likelihood of being able to adjust that behaviour, especially through more targeted executive coaching. If it is too late, if the damage has been done, then it's going to require a lot more reme- dial efforts to try to [deal] with that reputation that that individual may have created and that that company may have endorsed for longer than it should have." It's also important to have mechanisms in place where employees can anony- mously share their concerns. And if the problem is about general disrespectful behaviour, coaching can be useful, says Faison Hewlin. "But if we're delving into the point where employees are feeling harassed, they're feeling bullied, they're feeling a low sense of dignity, then measures need to be taken to remove that leader." The worst thing is when the toxic issues are not addressed, says Brown. "What I've seen many times is the conundrum of you've got a top performer in your company that smashes their targets, is a huge revenue generator, does a great job when it comes to maybe sales or business development, but they treat people very poorly, they don't respect people internally and they're seen as a tyrant," he says. "[By not addressing the situation], the signal that you're then sending to the rest of the company is that money is more important than culture. And 'We are not going to act on this person, even though they treat everybody like garbage, because they bring in money….' and that is not how are you going to get a winning company." CHRR TOXIC LEADERS LEAD TO HEALTH ISSUES "A lot of leaders are able to get away with negative behaviours because employees are afraid to speak." Patricia Faison Hewlin, McGill University 72% Percentage of employees who say toxic employees change their behaviour never or infrequently 72% Percentage of workers who wish their employers were less tolerant of toxic employees 44% Percentage of employees whose preferred response is to ignore toxic employees 60% Greater likelihood of employees with toxic leaders suffering a life- threatening cardiac condition 40% Greater likelihood of employees with good leaders suffering a life- threatening cardiac condition Source: Fierce Conversations, Stress Institute

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