What It Is
Overt behaviors include: Yelling; screaming; cursing; intimidating; using racial, ethnic or gender slurs; ignoring conversations; withholding information; slamming phones; rolling eyes, and intentionally excluding from a group. Then there are the “other” behaviors, the passive-aggressive ones that also make daily life difficult for the rest of the team. These behaviors include: arguing about the assignment; being “too busy” to take the next patient; being “too busy” to discharge the current patient to keep from getting the next patient; being tardy to avoid being assigned the first case; disappearing; taking extended breaks; letting everyone else answer the call bell; never helping anyone; making negative subtle comments; and generalized negativity. These are the behaviors your employees report being exposed to on a routine basis. Incivility in healthcare has become so common that it is tolerated, expected, and often not even called incivility. Above is not an exclusive list, just an overview of the behaviors seen in healthcare on a daily (sometimes hourly basis).
of healthcare workers
have witnessed incivility
in the workplace
of healthcare workers
have personally been
victim to incivility
of healthcare workers
acknowledge exhibiting
uncivil behavior while at work
Why It Exists
There is only one single reason incivility exists in healthcare. That reason is… Passive Leadership! Passive Leaders are those leaders who tolerate disruptive behavior; who speak in generality to the whole group rather than address the individuals who exhibit uncivil behavior; who aren’t sure how to turn the uncivil behaviors around; who make excuses for tolerating the disruptors; who fail to act; who fail to hold staff members accountable for incivility; and who fail to make the decision that incivility must end. Passive Leaders are often just as intimidated as the rest of the team by the disruptors and accept this uncivil behavior as status quo.
Why It Matters
Incivility negatively impacts every single aspect of what we as healthcare professionals stand for…
• Patient Safety
• Staff Safety
• Patient Engagement
• Staff Engagement
• Quality of Care
Want To End It?
If you are ready to end incivility today, contact me to find out how.
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I would love to discuss leadership methods that you can quickly implement that will stop the incivility and build the culture that your employees and your patients deserve.
CONNIE MONTALBO
DNP, MBA, RN, NEA-BC,
NURSING LEADER, INCIVILITY EXPERT
If you are ready to transform your team from toxic to a high performing engaged team that consistently provides compassionate quality care for your patients in a healthy workplace environment, I am glad you found my site. I would love to share with you methods that will work, practice changes you can quickly implement, and a positive approach to implementing zero tolerance for incivility with your team.
I have spent the last 20 years leading units, departments, and hospitals from toxic environments to highly engaged teams that provide excellent patient care. Along the way, my teams have achieved top employee engagement within my organizations, and even within my city. My quality benchmarks and patient engagement scores reflected the excellent care our patients received. My teams had consistently low turnover, did not engage in disruptive behaviors, and overall were a pleasure to lead.
Ignoring disruptive behavior, tolerating incivility, and being passive as a leader results in patient harm, poor quality, an unhappy staff, and less than desired outcomes on your dashboards. I hope you make the decision to end incivility today on your units and in your building. I hope you choose to create a healthy workplace where everyone wins!
TEAM THOUGHTS ABOUT PROJECT
When the leadership team used an active leadership approach and agreed to zero-tolerance for uncivil behaviors on a nursing unit, the perceptions of employees related to unit incivility improved, as did the leaders' perceptions of improved staff behavior.
“Staff are more open to communicating their concerns to leadership.”
