If you find yourself on a team in which playground bullies abound without any adult supervision, tread with caution.  If you complain to HR before trying to resolve the problem yourself, you will be viewed as the problem.

What Can Happen at a Team Meeting

• Because the team meeting is the best operating theater in which to view botched leadership, let’s dissect it, shall we?  Scalpel!  In the order of mild to severe, assaults from team members at meetings can include:

• Someone interrupts you

• The team completely ignores your last suggestion

• While going ‘round-robin’, the team is quiet in response to your suggestion but responds positively to a peer who says the same thing in a slightly different way

• Someone takes credit for your work

• Someone opposes your plan despite their support expressed privately to you

• A peer disparages you or your work

• Your boss disparages you or your work

 The fact that any one of the above has occurred indicates the manager has neglected their responsibility to mandate a safe and respectful operating environment. 

Learning to Live with Poor Leadership

Before we get to the practical suggestions for finding your balance in team meetings, check your expectations. Just because you have a boss doesn’t mean that he is competent in handling the dysfunction on his team.  Managers are rarely promoted into their roles because of their leadership skills, but rather because of their tenure or technical prowess. They seldom know how to manage teams. They are afraid of angering employees so they take the path of least resistance by withholding much needed feedback to aggressors.   Abandon any expectations of others based on their placement in an org chart.

Learning from Examples and Non-Examples of Leadership

There is a lot to be gained from observing the team meeting dynamic as you prepare for your future role as a team leader.  You can resolve to be a better leader than your boss by coming to the following conclusions:

An effective people manager:

• Observes how team members interact with each other

• Provides ongoing performance feedback, having taken the time to accurately observe / assess good and bad performance. 

• Is a conduit of information up and down the line:  Shares timely company information important to the team’s success.   Shares team accomplishments with senior managers.

A poor people manager:

• Withholds constructive feedback to avoid angering / de-motivating team members 

• Chastises the entire team for the actions of one person as opposed to confronting the offending party privately and directly

• Requires that others yield to the extreme behavior of the difficult team member so as not cause a ‘stir’.   

• Withholds information that they should be sharing with the team.   Fails to share team accomplishments with senior managers.

Tactics for Regaining Control at Meetings

Now that you’ve reconciled your expectations with the realities of your environment you will need some tools to regain control at meetings in your current role.    First, distinguish between the incidents that require you to address the injustice immediately within the meeting and those that you will handle outside of the meeting.  Your aim here is to achieve long term outcomes, not feel good retorts.    

You will need to respond to an injustice within the meeting for the following: Being interrupted, your suggestions are unacknowledged, and someone taking credit for your work.   Once the offending party has finished expressing their thought, a calm, dispassionate response is warranted.  Never be shrill. The Navigator has observed that the shrill employee will always lose out to the point of view (no matter how nonsensical) that is expressed in a calm and succinct manner.  A smile along with “I’m sure you didn’t mean to interrupt….”, or “…that is the point I was making earlier but perhaps I have not been clear” will allow you to reaffirm your place at the table.  If your co-worker Jessica takes credit for your project at a team meeting, you can set things right when you say (smiling no matter how tight) “…Jessica has been a great asset to our project and I appreciate her help”.  This statement reframes Jessica as one who may have assisted you, and not the other way around.

Some incidents require that you meet with the offending party privately. If your boss or peer publicly disparages you or your work, there so no need to respond in the moment.  Their own behavior demeans them.   Instead, insist on an immediate private meeting to determine the cause of the aggression to diffuse future attacks.   Repeated infractions despite your private discussions with them will indicate that the party has ulterior motives that must be not be tolerated.  The challenge for you now will be to determine a course of escalation.  If you have major conflict with a team member, a poor manager is not likely to help you resolve it.  If your boss is the problem, going straight to HR can make matters worse.  HR is not your advocate but rather an agency of the company.  The manager will be told that you reported an incident to HR, and you are now left with an angry bad manager.  Instead, consider confiding in a trusted senior mentor for advice and/ or consulting an employment attorney who can advise you how to document and report incidents.    

Finally, the Navigator cautions you against quitting too soon to find another company in the hope of a friendlier environment.  In today’s volatile times, leaders come and go as do good and bad employees throughout the org chart.  The specter that you run from will likely haunt you in your next job as well.  Better to build up your toolkit of dealing with the darker side of human nature so that you will become the leader that brings out the best in those around you.