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Got Attitude?

Katherine Dobbs, RVT, CVPM, PHR

Does your practice have anyone on the team with a bad attitude? (For some of us, the question might be, do we have anyone on the team with a good attitude!) Do you manage that person with the bad attitude?

I’m attending a seminar entitled “How to legally terminate employees with attitude problems.” Catchy title, huh? This topic is necessary to learn because you can’t really just fire someone for having a “bad attitude,” much as you may want to. But the best part is, typically a person with a bad attitude is not performing their duties well, and that is why you would fire them! Flipped around the other way, you as an employee can have any attitude you want, as long as your job performance remains good! Keep in mind, though, this is harder than it sounds.

So let’s say you work with or manage someone you believe has a bad attitude. This is a judgment call you’re making, it is your perspective that the person privately contains a “bad attitude.” What you really need to focus on is the behavior that you see with your own eyes, not the interpretation of that behavior made with your mind.

For example, you say or think, “Chris came in to work today in a bad mood, with a bad attitude.” You are assuming this person’s attitude is bad, like you can read Chris’ mind. But what makes you think this? It’s actually what you saw, i.e. the behavior of that person that you witnessed. So if you’re reporting Chris’ entrance into work to your manager, or to Chris in fact, you would describe exactly what you saw: “Chris walked into the break room cursing under her breath, slammed her locker door shut, ripped up her time card when she clocked in in the wrong spot, etc…”

You get the point; describe the ACTION, not your interpretation of what the action meant Chris must have been feeling. This is objective information that anyone could see in the same way, and likely other people did witness the same display. The truth is, you don’t know if this day represents a “bad” day for Chris or not; you never know, maybe this is a typical entrance for Chris and doesn’t mean her attitude is any different than any other day. (Let’s hope not!)

This is how the manager or supervisor would explain the behavior (not the attitude) to Chris when counseling her on her behavior, and of course how it affects the team members around her. What needs to change? The behavior needs to stop. You don’t really care if Chris’ attitude changes or not, but her behavior had better change.

Again, the beautiful part of this is that when her behavior changes, forced or not, her attitude will likely improve on its own…it’s hard to fake good behavior with a bad attitude!

So always focus on the behavior you see with your own two eyes, rather than reading people’s minds to discover their “attitude.” Good behavior = good performance = continued happy employment!

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Got Attitude?

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