Incivility in school workplaces

As we come to the final weeks of the year, people are tired, frustration is creeping in and tempers can be shorter. In my 1:1 work I’m hearing many stories about behaviours that don’t meet criteria for the big names – harassment, discrimination or bullying, but they’re still not great. We can name many of these ‘incivil behaviours’.

Experts in incivility define the term as “low-intensity deviant (rude, discourteous) behavior with ambiguous intent to harm the target in violation of workplace norms for mutual respect” (Pearson et al., 2005). Quite the sentence, but in short we’re considering unhelpful behaviour that’s on the negative side of neutral at work. It’s often constant and just under the radar, and it can have poor consequences for individuals, teams and school cultures.

We’ve likely all been guilty of this behaviour, and 98% of workers confirm they’ve been the recipients of it, with half saying up to weekly. Ignoring growing incivility in a school workplace (rather than accidental one-offs) is a fast track to poor performance and cultural outcomes, not least because other harmful workplace behaviours that may follow are genies that are hard to put back in their bottles once they appear. How do we counter incivil behaviours if we’re in a leadership role in a school where this is occurring?

Starting with an intention to lead change, and following this with interventions that explore workplace beliefs, behaviours, or both can be one place to begin.

• Beliefs: the underpinning belief in workplace that value civility is that every worker deserves to be treated respectfully. Unpacking what this means ‘in our school’ with all staff is a good start.
• Behaviours: talking about and implementing small, civil behaviours can help too: acknowledging emails and requests, greeting people when they join a meeting, following protocols for building more open communication in and across teams. Leadership development for new leaders in holding difficult conversations can be helpful too. In short, treating other people as you wish (on a good day!) to be treated.

An important message here is that leaders can’t ignore this behaviour, and hope it goes away – unfortunately, it generally doesn’t. Incivility is named in a literature review prepared for Safe Work Australia as a harmful workplace behaviour, and in our growing work across schools to respond well to psychosocial hazards this is another that is well worth tackling. Positive, respectful cultures support staff to foster great student learning and wellbeing outcomes, and to have a safe and enjoyable time at school as their workplace too.

References:

O’Keeffe, V., Howard, S., Neall, A., Cebulla, A., & Hordacre, A-l. (2024). Harmful behaviours in the workplace: A literature review. Adelaide: Australian Industrial Transformation Institute, Flinders University of South Australia. https://www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/sites/default/files/2024-07/d24_12653_harmful_behaviours_report_formatted_for_accessibility.pdf

Pearson, C. M., Andersson, L. M., & Porath, C. L. (2005). Workplace incivility. In S. Fox & P. E. Spector (Eds.), Counterproductive work behavior: Investigations of actors and targets (pp. 177–200). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/10893-008

Melinda Phillips, Director/Principal Psychologist at Compassionate Schools.
School, team and individual services available to Australian schools and teachers; please feel free to contact us.