When this occurs, employee“ buy-in” to excellence diminishes, and with it, the quality of the company’ s product or services. As we know, consumers can spot this loss in value quickly and shift their loyalties to your competitors. This only adds to the pressures of leadership. When leadership cares about their employees’ well-being as well as the company’ s bottom line, their employees care more for each other and the well-being of where they work, and a thriving business is the result.
Unlike utopian aspirations, these feelings of connectedness to each other and the belief that the world is made better through each day’ s work can indeed exist. There is no expectation of perfection, or nirvana-like overtones at play here. There is, however, a commitment, by the work community, to a set of shared values and the determination to remain vigilant about, what Max De Pree refers to in his book“ Leadership is an Art” as,“ the tone of the body.”
Vigilance, in this context, is meant to signify acute awareness of the work community’ s cultural health. Are there any toxic patterns of uncivil communications developing? Are disruptive behaviors beginning to impact group dynamics? Are there signs of chronic frustration or dissatisfaction? Is work performance flagging?
If indeed each of us participates in creating our work culture by bringing who we are to the community, then awareness of who each person is can be very useful in deciphering the signals contributing to the erosion of a curative culture within the work community.
This level of awareness is a community-wide endeavor, and it requires a basic sense of safety and fairness to communicate concerns. This leads us to the fundamental well-being questions co-workers have about their colleagues and supervisors:
-“ Can I trust them and their intentions?”-“ Are they worthy of my respect?”-“ Am I safe?”
If coworkers respect their leaders and colleagues, trust their intentions, and feel safe in their work environment, then they will want to preserve this curative culture. And if their work community prizes the knowledge and worth of the individuals within it, coworkers will seek a restorative resolution to any behavior that threatens their sense of well-being.
Having acknowledged the imperfect nature of any work culture, we must also extend vigilance to those raising concerns about others’ behaviors. Wisdom, prudence, and discernment become the guardrails for negotiating this terrain. When concerns arise over coworker behavior, remediation must not be allowed to linger once verified. Experience teaches that allowing dysfunctional behavior to continue without redress erodes belief in the embodiment of values.
Perhaps even more sobering is the likelihood that if the offending behavior is allowed to continue without challenge, it can be construed
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