When building teams, either for projects or not, the people engaged in the day-to-day
might have different motivations and behaviors towards the end goal. Sometimes, the
resources might lead to an inspirational and supportive position within the team, sometimes
the other way around, effectively working as the team's detractors, self-sabotaging the team's
efforts.
Bailey (2022) explained in detail a team member with destructive behavior. According
to the author, there are six types of destructive behavior: Overachiever, The Clown, Bullying,
Procrastinator, Avoidance/Denial and Rebellion (Baliey, 2022). Another article identifies a
few more detractors types: Aggressors, Blockers, Withdrawers, Recognition Seekers, Topic
Jumpers, Dominators, and Devil’s Advocate (Gupta, 2018). Although each type might have a
different impact on the team, we can highlight a few different impacts. Many times,
communication in the team will be inefficient or nonexistent whatsoever, perhaps driven by
fear, resentment, or any other feeling (Bailey, 2022), effectively halting any decision-making
process in the team. Another impact worth noting is flexibility; in practicality, a team is
divided into silos (Bailey, 2022), making team efforts and resources and skills sharing
impossible across the activities.
Moreover, leaders should follow a three-stage gradual intervention to mitigate the
impacts of destructive employees. Firstly, leaders should prevent such behaviors, ideally in
the recruiting phase; secondly, when prevention fails, leaders should take early action as soon
as possible. Training and communication are recommended; finally, when early actions are
ineffective, leaders should eliminate the toxic behavior as soon as possible (Bailey, 2022).
As said, when conflicts arise, leaders should act fast to prevent the performance loss
of all the team members, not only the detractors’ employees. The most common issue caused
by destructive behavior is conflict, which is sometimes necessary to share different mindsets
and backgrounds and turn the group into a centralized team (Villax & Anantatmula, 2010).
One article recently identified many types of conflict: Communication conflicts when lack of
information causes misunderstanding or misinterpretations (Villax & Anantatmula, 2010),
Cultural drive conflicts, Institutional and more (Villax & Anantatmula, 2010).
I have experienced both examples in my professional career. While supportive
colleagues are less frequent than destructive, the experience with these professionals was
outstanding. Supportive employees often create an environment that fosters creativity and
