{"id":24860,"date":"2026-10-13T20:45:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-13T20:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.brightmine.com\/uk\/?post_type=resources&p=24860"},"modified":"2026-11-12T20:46:14","modified_gmt":"2026-11-12T20:46:14","slug":"boss-whispering-how-to-bring-about-change-in-change-resistant-abrasive-managers","status":"publish","type":"resources","link":"https:\/\/www.brightmine.com\/uk\/resources\/talent-management\/performance-management\/boss-whispering-how-to-bring-about-change-in-change-resistant-abrasive-managers\/","title":{"rendered":"Boss whispering: How to bring about change in change-resistant abrasive managers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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by Stephen Tolfree<\/strong>, Executive Coach<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tackling abrasive behaviour by high-performing leaders is one of the most difficult issues for HR and managers. But there’s a well-established approach from America to help with this – “boss whispering”. This article distils the main lessons from this framework that can be used by HRBPs and employee relations specialists to deal effectively with this tricky issue. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conflict in the workplace is hugely costly. People don’t want to work with abrasive colleagues, so such behaviour causes high levels of employee turnover. Acas calculates that conflict costs UK employers \u00a328.5bn a year<\/a>. The biggest cost is not recruitment but of having unfilled vacancies and in the time it takes for new recruits to get up to speed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wider impact on culture<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Abrasive leaders have a wider impact on corporate culture. Psychological safety is reduced, making it harder to innovate and collaborate. This reduces discretionary effort and creates maladaptive behaviours as colleagues seek to avoid and manage the abrasive leader. Most leadership teams talk positively about wellbeing. When they also tolerate abrasive behaviour within their management chain, it makes them look weak or hypocritical. It is often said that an organisation’s culture is the worst behaviour it is willing to tolerate. Abrasive leaders become role models for what behaviour is acceptable in the organisation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The dilemma of addressing abrasive high performers<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Abrasive leaders are typically highly resistant to feedback, so traditional attempts to encourage them to change often fail. This leaves HR and managers stuck in a dilemma. They want the leader’s performance but not their behaviour. The cost for the wider organisation is mounting, but they don’t want to lose the abrasive individual’s valuable skills, contacts, experience and performance. It seems as though there is a binary choice: to tolerate the behaviour or to fire the individual.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The good news is that there is a third option: boss whispering. This has been widely used in the S&P 500 and the US Government for four decades, but is relatively new to the UK. And amazingly, it has an 83% success rate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coaching the manager – winning the “fact battle”<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The first step of a boss whispering intervention is to coach the manager on how to intervene. Abrasive leaders are highly defensive. Typically the manager hasn’t seen the abrasive behaviour directly but has heard about it through complaints. This makes it hard for the manager to win a “fact battle” as the abrasive leader was present for the incident(s) and therefore has the upper hand in debates about what happened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is often thought that empathy is innate and can’t be trained. But actually, of all the character traits, it is the most responsive to learning and development. The process of analysing their colleagues’ response to situations builds up the empathy muscle of the abrasive leader.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is an elegant way of raising these complaints that avoids fact battles. Boss whispering uses the phrase “negative perceptions”. While the manager may never know the facts about what happened in any incident, they do know for a fact (from the many complaints) that the abrasive leader is generating repeated negative perceptions about their conduct.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Armed with the language of negative perceptions, the manager is then supported to put the abrasive leader under pressure to change. The manager does this by setting limits and consequences. Limits mean saying that “these negative perceptions need to stop”, and consequences mean setting out what will happen if they don’t. Boss whispering doesn’t work in every case, so managers need to know what they are going to do if this coaching doesn’t work. Consequences need to be appropriate to the behaviour, its impact and the organisational setting. They might include initiating disciplinary action in the event of a further complaint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Qualities of abrasive leaders<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Abrasive leaders have two common psychological features: one obvious and one surprising. The obvious finding is that they are clueless about the impact of their behaviour – they are lacking in empathy. But contrary to the stereotype of the confident workplace bully, abrasive leaders are also highly anxious. They are highly anxious about their performance and are abrasive to colleagues they think are underperforming, in an attempt to calm their own work anxiety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the anxiety and cluelessness help drive the abrasive behaviour, they can also be used as a tool to motivate people to change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How abrasive leaders are persuaded to change<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The alchemy of change comes from a combination of:<\/p>\n\n\n\n