Managing Insubordination

dealing with insubordination is something that you might run into as a frontline supervisor manager or even as an executive so we're gonna look at what is insubordination and what should you do about it when you do encounter it insubordination can be defined really in two different ways number one is it can be a work refusal that is you ask me to do something as the boss and I either don't do it or and then by the way I could refuse to your face in other words there's no way no way in heck I'm going to go ahead and do that that's obviously blatant insubordination then there's also the person just doesn't do what you've asked them to do but they don't tell you they're not going to do what they just don't do it and finally third would be that they take an extraordinarily unreasonable amount of time to do what you've asked them to do so that would be actually not doing something that you've assigned to a person that is insubordination the second type of insubordination though isn't so much a work refusal it's the disrespectful conduct so if you have an employee that tells their boss to go to heck you know or worse you know curses and swears is disrespectful to the leader that is also insubordination now if that happens okay a couple things need to happen first of all if you as a leader just put up with it or condone it it's probably going to get worse and worse over time so you're gonna have to actually step up and be very direct to the person and say I've asked you or I signed you a work task or when you speak to me like that that is insubordination that is unacceptable conduct so you have a choice right now you can you can apologize you can reform your behavior or this is going to become a disciplinary situation right leaders do not have to put up with that kind of conduct from their teams now on the flip side of that I just want to be direct with you you as a leader have to watch that you're not being overly disrespectful or almost insubordinate to your people now technically that's not insubordination but it is just good leadership behavior to make sure that you're not using a profane language or being disrespectful to your team if you set a high standard in terms of your own conduct if your team then treats you that way you can then talk to them about that being in sabor nation the problem if you never say anything about insubordinate behavior is it starts to set the standard in your team and different people will just not do what you've asked them to do and then what you'll do is you'll take that job assignment and give it to somebody else who's more cooperative and meanwhile that person says see I don't have to do the same work as other people so insubordination is not something you want to tolerate as a leader and of course like any disciplinary situation you're gonna need to go and talk to human resources to get them on side or to your manager and again if they just say oh they be that's just the person being themselves just say hey I'm just sick of it I'm sick of that behavior it needs to change I want to confront it I want to correct it and I want to change it now remember your job as the leader is not to be a chief Punisher your job is to correct behaviors to get people to meet your expectations so we're not possible don't go accusation 'el don't start yelling and screaming at the person stay calm right because you're talking to them about their behavior you don't want to make sure your behaviors you know setting the standard so stay calm discuss it with them say hey I can't have you refuse to do the work that I've assigned you I can't have you talk to me or others disrespectfully so what I need you to do is to be the great employee I know you can be and meet the expectations from a behavior standpoint by dealing with insubordination is just one of the challenges you can run into as a leader and of course if we can be of any assistance on-site doing one of our leadership workshops or maybe having you subscribe to our online learning library or video subscription service or just buying some of our books for your frontline team you can do that on our website at frontline leadership comm and if you want to join in with other like-minded supervisors managers and executives you could sign up on our Facebook page which is frontline leader

Channel: Front Line Leadership

Views: 38,169

Rating: 4.8184991 out of 5

Keywords: Leadership, Management, Communication, Supervisor, Manufacturing, Frontline Leader, Insubordination

Id: E6XeOa9pkBc

Length: 4min 1sec (241 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 21 2018