Spa Executive | Issue 11 | October 2019

Don’t let a toxic employee poison your spa
workplace. To spot them, look for:
A person who is very self regarding.
Minor’s study found that people who are
highly “self regarding,” as opposed to “other
regarding,” are more likely to be toxic
employees. A self regarding person does not
“internalize the cost that their behavior
imposes on others,” wrote Minor. “A way to
capture one’s degree of other-regardingness
is to identify how concerned one is about
taking care of another’s needs.” This concern
should impact the choices one makes, and
someone who is more self regarding is,
therefore, more likely to cause toxicity
because they don’t care how their actions
affects co-workers.
Someone who is overconfident.
According to Minor’s paper, overconfidence
is an inflated belief in one’s own abilities that
can be linked to engaging in misconduct.
Someone who is overconfident believes that
the probability of the better outcome is higher
than it actually is. It makes sense to also
associate overconfidence with higher self
regard and a propensity towards always
being right. Confidence is good.
Overconfidence can be toxic.
Someone who always insists on
following the rules.
This one is odd, but according to Minor,
people who claim the rules should never be
broken — as opposed to saying sometimes
it’s necessary to break the rules to
accomplish something — are significantly
more likely to be terminated for breaking the
rules. Minor suggests that this is a form of
Machiavellianism of which we should be
wary.
Heightened tensions and drama when
one person is around compared with
when they are not.
Moving away from Minor’s findings and into
more general territory, if it feels like tensions
tend to mount and fall on a regular basis, look
around and see if there isn’t a common
denominator. It could be just one person
causing all that tension — if you can spot that
person, you’re going to have to address it.
“A way to capture
one’s degree of
other-regardingn
ess is to identify
how concerned
one is about
taking care of
another’s needs.”
The last one standing.
I once worked at a company with a manager
whose entire team kept getting fired one after
the other. Project after project tanked under
this person’s leadership, and yet she
remained at the company while her
employees kept getting let go – she even got
promoted. At no point did her superiors ever
seem to think maybe the problem was her,
though everyone else around could see it
plain as day.
Someone who always has a problem.
You know that one person who is never
happy? Some of us might look for an
explanation for this person’s constant
complaints, assume that it’s our fault or
someone else’s, or worry that they’re justified
in some other way. But sometimes a person
is just difficult and enjoys being unhappy –
and that unhappiness will spread to the rest
of your team.
A person who is always right.
We all know that person who can never back
down and admit to being wrong. In an
employee and colleague, this behavior can
be very hard to handle and can certainly
poison an atmosphere. One who is never
wrong lacks humility, as well as the openness
to learning that makes a great team member.
Keep an eye out for the person who is never
wrong. They are bad for any environment.
Someone who seems to be at the top of
the pecking order.
You can’t always spot bullying but you might
notice that a hierarchy has formed with a
monarch at the top and subjects underneath
who genuflect and vie for that person’s
favour. This can seem benign on the surface
but is an unhealthy peer structure that should
be monitored. Nobody should be in charge
but management, and even then nobody
should be behaving like a queen bee.
Back to Minor’s research, the study found,
interestingly, that toxic workers are actually
very productive, which may explain why
managers tend to keep them around. But
they’re still not worth it, because they ruin the
work environment and can turn non-toxic
workers into toxic ones. You’ve heard of the
bad apple spoiling the whole bunch.
Spotting the person presenting an issue is
the first step towards fixing the situation.
07 | Spa Executive Management