Most workplaces have a Toxic Ted or Tammy who spreads negativity and kills morale, but leaders rarely confront them out of fear. That inaction damages the whole organization. The host argues supervisors need emotional intelligence training to handle these conversations and actually address the problem.
So I'm on my way to do a training, and I was thinking about, you know, my podcast Workplace War Stories, and I was thinking about all of the characters and personalities that, you know, you as the audience have told me about, ones I've experienced myself. And, you know, it's time to really talk more about these personalities because when people talk about, you know, the morale is low, uh, they don't really— they're not vibing with the culture. A lot of times these personalities That I'm about to start mentioning are indirectly related to the problem. Now, if you happen to be one of these personalities, I say this is a great opportunity for you to take a fresh look at how you're behaving. Because if you feel like this personality is a reference, is a reflection of you, and so many people can identify With that personality, at some point you gotta realize that maybe everybody's not the problem. It's you, and that's okay. That's what the emotional intelligence process is about. So today I wanna talk about Toxic Ted/Tammy, right? And remember, the names are not true reflections of actual names. They're more a reflection of the personality. But do you work with a Toxic Ted or a Toxic Tammy? Right? And what do I mean by toxic Ted or Tammy? I'm talking about the toxic person that one thing's for sure and two things for certain: if they're involved in the conversation, it's gonna be messy. If there's any negativity happening around in the workplace, they in it. They're the ones that are bringing all the bad news to every situation and spreading it along the way. Right, that emotional contagion. Toxic Ted and Tammy are problematic in the workplace, and this is what makes it problematic, because they get away with it. Everybody know who they are. When I say Toxic Ted or Toxic Tammy right now, you probably have an idea of someone in your head. And if you don't have an idea of them, Let's hope it's not you. But what I'm saying is that everybody know about it, but nobody's doing anything about it. And this is where, if you're in leadership or you're a supervisor, this is where it's not helping you as a leader. Because although people are not saying anything out loud, they're definitely saying something to themselves, and they're saying it in small groups about how this person gets to do this and do that. And nobody's saying anything. And I get it. Sometimes we don't say things because people are afraid of, you know, getting grievances filed on them or unfair practices or feeling like someone's gonna say they being harassed and singled out and all the tricks of the trade. We get it. But you do more damage to your organization not confronting Toxic Ted or Tammy. Because they need to be stopped in their tracks and they need to understand That their behavior and the way that they are continuing carrying on mess is counterproductive to whatever your mission statement is. I'm willing to bet that. Now, you probably don't know how to approach them because you haven't had emotional intelligence training. So all I'm saying is that if you have a Toxic Ted, Toxic Tammy in your work environment and you need the EI guy to slide through, Right, and bring some positive vibes to your organization to empower you to be able to have the difficult conversations and process them correctly, you know what to do. Click on the link connected to this or share this with somebody who might benefit from it because it's time to neutralize Toxic Ted and Toxic Tammy. And I unapologetically mean that. Peace.
I was literally kicked off a Southwest flight before for being disrespectful.
