Behaviour is contagious

Behaviour doesn't stay where it lands, it travels.

Researchers Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler found that behaviours such as kindness, generosity, rudeness, dishonesty etc. spread through social networks up to three degrees of separation. The person who ignores your email teaches everyone ‘watching’ that it's acceptable. The manager who talks over people in meetings produces a team of people who talk over each other and so on.

This is why ‘it's just one person’ is never just one person.

I've written before about the brilliant jerk - the individual whose talent is used to justify their toxicity. What I didn't address was the damage they do that nobody measures, that is, the three (usually good) people they've quietly turned. The people who've started arriving late to meetings because leadership clearly doesn't care. The people who've stopped sharing ideas because the risk no longer seems worth it.

Behaviour replicates.

The good news is that positive behaviour travels just as readily. One person who genuinely listens in a meeting changes the temperature of the room. One leader who admits a mistake shifts what's permissible for everyone else.

Behaviour is not impossible to change. You just need to start somewhere and then be honest about what you're currently spreading.