Scholars posit that the acumen in current leadership is not on power, authority and commanding subjects but on building and sustaining workable relationships.
In corporate setups, successful leaders across the globe are those who are particularly capable of creating harmonious relationships amongst internal publics and between their institutions and the stakeholders. Better still, leaders are able to create cordial associations that are in synchrony with their organisational strategic mandate.
A negating factor to this approach in corporate circles has been frosty and conflicting relationships among employees. Virtually all organisations have stories abound of intra- and inter-departmental conflicts.
There have been experiences in some organisations of some colleagues whose main preoccupation is nothing but to scheme and plot the downfall of their colleagues. Some for their own aggrandisement, to settle personal scores or sadistic motive to see others suffer, among others unfounded foundations.
Tales are said of employees who go to great lengths to outsmart their colleagues. They do this with overt and undercover antics that they have polished over time.
They will badmouth, rubbish others' work, tarnish colleagues' personal and professional existence, render themselves “official” mongers and act aloof on team assignments only to annoyingly try to position themselves as though they are much better than teammates in the eyes of their superiors on completion of tasks among obnoxious behaviour.
Holding information and meanness in knowledge sharing also characterises such an unwanted lot. Perhaps the thing only known of them for decades of service in the organisation they have been is the toxicity propagated in their workplaces.
The architecture in today’s division of tasks as most organisational organigrams are designed, is that teams are interdependent and most times delivery of assignments is sequential.
Notwithstanding the sector or nature of organisation, there will be teams that will initiate processes, others are responsible for technical action, others will be tasked with the duty of outsourcing services that may be required and resourcing while others will be involved in post-service/delivery payments and eventual monitoring, evaluation and accounting or reporting.
This portrays the chain nature of work that then becomes a necessity rather than the exception for all team members to make meaningful contributions to the continuum within their task frame.
Those institutions that do not arrest the situation in good time, the pratfall effect – the tendency to influence others based on one's behaviour within a common organised setup – sets in and so badly affects the team members that are self-driven, focused , committed and innovative.
In the spirit of reflection, especially making better the world of others in the new year ahead, this irrational behaviour is worth the attention for remedy of every worker and worth the priority of every corporate leader within his/her fold of human capital.
Those that may harbour such unbecoming conduct must be purposeful to self-correct, looking at the adverse and far-reaching effects on their fellow workers and the organisation.
One needs to ask, do I need to be a cause of pain and strain through self-made behaviour to colleagues? Do I need to be the baggage to teammates on assignments? At the end of any task completed, would I point at my meaningful contribution that made the team successful? Am I a self-centred person in a team?
Answers to some of these reflective questions will be a beginning to self-redemption not just at the workplace but also at a personal level.
The modern-day workplace has lots of turbulence, expectations and dynamic demands. These at the very least bogs down workers mentally, economically and socially.
There should not be a space for such an avoidable burden. Let us all not be the source of derailment, draining and strangulation to our colleagues' effort but instead be the reason, advocates and practitioners of co-working and collaboration— a great enabler of gratification and positive corporate culture at our workplaces.
Though we serve for a season, adding value through others or within working teams only makes us better.
Corporate communication practitioner
