Address the elephant in the room, every single time. If there is something pressing or something that desperately needs to be talked about it, bring it up with the appropriate people as soon as possible. Don’t let it wait. Don’t let it sit. Don’t let it continue. Bring it up. If your leaders are truly leaders, they will handle it. If they do not, call them on it. Whatever you do, do not just let it go.
Keep in mind that you have to use your judgment. Not everything is an elephant.
What you don’t want is to create this situation where everyone knows this ongoing thing is happening and ignores it because they don’t want to be the one that sets the shitstorm into motion.
Even worse is creating this situation where everyone around you is conditioned to take on and enable passive aggressive behavior. Once this happens – often because of lazy leadership who are too chickenshit to handle conflict – then you can’t trust anyone because they are speaking out of both sides of their mouths.
Get it out. Talk it out. Come to an agreement. Honor the agreement. And hold everyone accountable for the agreement. If they renege on what they tell you, you just got your answer about what type of leaders you really have.
By the way: If you’re the leader, guess what will happen if you don’t handle your shit…
