We've long said that bad attitudes on your faculty and staff can poison a school community. Toxic teachers can lead to resignations of your best staff, flagging enthusiasm, and a lack of innovation within your classrooms. Despite the best hiring protocols, many administrators believe that "Negative Nellies" and others of their ilk inevitably creep into any large community of professionals. People, the philosophy dictates, must learn to work around such roadblocks.
However, recent research out of the University of Michigan has revealed that negative coworkers can bring the entire community down, rendering efforts to "work around" the toxicity as useless.
Business Professor Gretchen Spreitzer's paper, "Destructive De-Energizing Relationships: How Thriving Buffers Their Effect on Performance," centers around two parts. In the first, Spreitzer asked information-technology employees about their interpersonal relationships with colleagues. She then compared their responses to their previous performance evaluations, finding that the more often an employee had to work with an identified toxic—or "de-energizing"—coworker, the worse the employee's performance became.
In the second part, Spreitzer surveyed a different group of employees at another firm using similar questions. However, instead of looking at performance evaluations, she and her team asked whether employees personally felt that they were "thriving." Spreitzer told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that by "thriving," her team meant "that feeling where you are on your game, making progress in growth and development, and energized"—an attitude which seems to buffer employees from the company's "de-energizers."
Ultimately, to cultivate an environment that is "buffered" against de-energizers, Spreitzer suggests to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that employees:
— limit interactions with de-energizers;
— ensure their own work is meaningful and has purpose; and
— increase the time they spend with people who make them feel good.
Interestingly, Spreitzer does not encourage "venting" to other employees as a primary outlet to enhance mood. The focus should be on the positive while quietly mitigating the negative.
Of course, the best solution for all is to nip toxic behaviors in the bud to prevent a full-fledged blossoming of ill-will in the school community. If your school is struggling to contain faculty or staff negativity, we have some suggestions here on how to improve their attitudes before resorting to dismissal.
Additional ISM resources:
ISM Monthly Update for School Heads Vol. 12 No. 7 "Detoxing" Faculty Negativity
ISM Monthly Update for Division Heads Vol. 8 No. 2 The Recipe to Prevent Teachers From Becoming Toxic
ISM Monthly Update for Division Heads Vol. 7 No. 9 Make Your Faculty Evaluation Meaningful
ISM Monthly Update for Human Resources Vol. 11 No. 6 Rebuilding Working Relationships
Additional ISM resources for Gold Consortium members:
I&P Vol. 37 No. 2 Aegis Academy Faculty Evaluation Sample
I&P Vol. 37 No. 1 Systematically Attracting, Developing, Rewarding, and Retaining Faculty: A Mission-Based Model for 21st Century Schools
I&P Vol. 33 No. 10 Characteristics of Professional Excellence: Faculty Interviews
