How do you deal with rudeness in your organization? - SmartBrief

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How do you deal with rudeness in your organization?

1 min read

By Mike Figliuolo 05/26/16

Leadership

SmartPulse — our weekly nonscientific reader poll in SmartBrief on Leadership — tracks feedback from more than 190,000 business leaders. We run the poll question each week in our e-newsletter.

Last week, we asked: How do you deal with rudeness in your organization?

  • I immediately confront it, and harshly: 39.97%
  • I ignore it: 23.26%
  • I act overly nice in the face of it: 34.76%
  • I act rudely in return: 2.01%

Rudeness won’t be tolerated. About 75% of you confront rudeness as you see it, albeit using different tactics. Direct confrontation definitely calls it out but leaves the possibility of escalation and further rudeness. The other half of you “kill them with kindness,” which clearly has its benefits. The bottom line is, as a leader, you are responsible for the culture in your organization. If you tolerate rudeness, it could lead to a toxic culture which will lead to poor performance and turnover. Combat rudeness as you see it.

Mike Figliuolo is managing director of thoughtLEADERS and author of “One Piece of Paper: The Simple Approach to Powerful, Personal Leadership.”