By Janna Pearman Jacobs

I was reminded recently of someone I worked with early in my career who regularly sabotaged their leadership. I was in IT and responsible for the line-of-business application suite, and they were my business liaison. In hindsight, they were toxic! We didn’t use this word back then. But they created an “us vs. them” dynamic.

This is what it looked like:

They exploited team members' emotions (desire to be helpful and liked).

• Regularly asking for favors (changes), saying they needed it done so they “wouldn’t get in trouble”.

• Asking individual team members to make changes outside of change management practices.

They subverted the chain of command (governance).

• They “managed down through blame” stating that upper management was incompetent and did not know what was needed.

• They encouraged team members to ignore directives from higher leadership.

This led to confusion, significant conflict, and project delays. I was trying to accomplish the strategic objectives set for the team, but the business liaison was going around me to team members with their pet work.

They say: lead or be led; manage or be managed!

This is how I handled the situation.

I validated with upper management that I understood the strategic objectives.

I informed upper management about the situation and how I planned to address it.

• I confirmed I had their support, and they had my back. This is critical, or the situation can’t be effectively addressed.

I communicated with my team to ensure we were all on the same page and heard the same message. I refer to this as the “look me in the eye conversation”:

• Sharing the strategic objectives

• Calling out the business liaison’s behavior

• Giving my team a path to escalate liaison requests to me, so they didn’t have to be the “bad guy”. Letting the team know I had their backs.

• Increasing visibility to progress reporting

I communicated with the business liaison, reiterating the strategic objectives, and asking them to work with me on change requests rather than going directly to the team.

I closed the door on shadow work and diverting resources away to non-strategic work. I ensured everyone knew what we were working on, why, and how we were doing.

As expected, this did not make the business liaison happy. I’m now in a power struggle with them. The business liaison tried to undermine my authority, incite the team to ignore me, intimidate, and bully me.

This is where bullets one and two above are critical — validating you understand the strategic objectives and leadership has your back. Bullets three and four ensure everyone involved hears the same message and knows what is expected — without exception.

Once you’ve completed the above, you hold people accountable by maintaining regular communication to ensure alignment and have visibility to drift.

If you need help addressing toxic behaviors, this is the work we do. Visit RKCMANAGEMENTCONSULTING.COM to schedule an appointment.