The word "confront" has acquired such a negative connotation. When someone is described as confrontational, you think of an argumentative person, or a critical, whiny person. Someone who enjoys "picking a fight," or is a bully that enjoys beating others down.

It doesn’t need to be that way.

Confront only means to face head-on, directly, and unequivocally. This is often healthier than passive-aggressive actions that some managers take to avoid confronting unacceptable behavior.

Some behaviors are in fact unacceptable and need to be confronted directly by the manager and as soon as they manifest.

Why?

As Barney Fife used to say, "nip it in the bud" before those behaviors become habitual. The longer an unacceptable behavior is allowed to slide, the more ingrained becomes the behavior, and when you finally do confront it, the person is left wondering, "Why is it bothering you now; I’ve always done this?"

Yes, your staff do notice the kinds of behaviors you accept and the ones you don’t. Your staff notices when a co-worker habitually does something wrong and when there are no consequences, you can trust that they will adopt that behavior, too.

Why toe the line when there are no rewards for good behavior, and no consequences to bad behavior?

Before other staff and/or customers point out and complain, let’s say the behavior doesn’t bother you enough to warrant a potentially nasty confrontation. Would your customers agree with your assessment or would you hear complaints from them? You risk damaging your business’ reputation and yours as a leader.

Not confronting bad behavior connotes implicit approval. You may have encountered the repercussions from this if you’ve ever assumed command of a department and confronted a long-standing employee with unacceptable behavior; that person’s response might go something like this, "I’ve been here 18 years and no one has said anything before about this; I think you have it in for me, and I’m going to file a harassment claim with HR."

When you don’t immediately confront an unacceptable behavior, it usually worsens and escalates.

One manager I know has the wrong perceptions of confronting an employee, so she uses broad generalizations in her staff meetings. Instead of confronting one female employee about wearing shockingly revealing clothing, she reminds the staff in a meeting about the company’s dress code.

Or, when discovering that one staffer is using his mobile phone on the sales floor instead of helping customers, she reminds the staff about the “no cellphone” policy. And when one staffer consistently restocks products incorrectly, she tells the staff to be careful in restocking.

What’s wrong with this approach?

  1. She risks the wrong people hearing the message.
  2. She risks the right person not hearing the message.
  3. This elicits more questions and concerns from the staff to whom this issue does not apply.

So what is her reason for using these broad generalizations in meetings?

  1. Fear of an angry or tearful response from the person she’s confronting and fear of not being able to manage the confrontation properly.
  2. She wants to be "nice."
  3. She doesn’t want to implicate a "tattler" in case this behavior was first brought to her attention by a co-worker.

None of these worries need to play a part in confronting bad behavior. As with every other managerial responsibility, it’s all in how you handle it.

As soon as unacceptable behavior is verified (and not based on gossip or hearsay), take that person aside privately and directly make a statement of fact about the behavior.

For example:

"The clothes you have been wearing do not meet our company dress code."

"It has come to my attention that you have been chatting on your cellphone while clocked in and working on the sales floor."

"The products you were assigned to restock yesterday were all put in the wrong homes and with the wrong prices."

These kinds of statements do not reflect a biased judgment, a personal vendetta, or retaliation. They are simply statements of fact.

In a very productive encounter with a motivated employee, a calm and factual demeanor on your part elicits an apology with a promise to do better.

Of course, that’s not always the case. I have learned that the more wrong someone is, the more aggressive and belligerent they get to deflect your confrontation.

The scammers who try to return clearly stolen merchandise for a cash refund are frequently the loudest and argumentative; they figure that throwing a tantrum and making a scene will get you from noticing they’re frauds.

The employees who angrily demand to know, "Who told you I was on my cellphone?" or, "Who said it was me that restocked everything wrong?" are doing something similar.

Recognize that ploy as an aggressive maneuver to distract you from what they’ve done to what someone else has done. Who told you or how you found out is not really relevant, is it? The only salient issue is that unacceptable behavior must stop.

In those instances, I find the "broken phonograph" technique to be very helpful. Keep repeating, "it has come to my attention…" "but who told you?" "it has come to my attention…" "I want to know who said that?" "it has come to my attention....and that behavior must stop."

For that type of belligerent employee, start a paper trail of when you’ve discussed the unacceptable behavior, the correct behavior expected by the company, and quantifiable goals with deadlines. You don’t want to be in the unenviable position of having to defend yourself against the lies of "she never told me I was doing anything wrong," when all you have is a vague memory of an oral chat.

As a manager, your responsibility is to be a good leader of a motivated, well-functioning team. And yes, you can definitely be nice in your job duties. But your job duties do not include being everyone’s friend at the expense of condoning unacceptable behavior.