Contrary to what many politicians or reality TV stars might believe, rudeness can have major effects on how a team functions. The Journal of Applied Psychology recently published an article by Gale, Erez, Bamberger, Foulk, Cooper, Riskin, Schilpzand, and Vashdi that examines how incivility undermines employee performance.
Their five studies show that teams exposed to rude behaviour perform worse than others, mainly because they share less information and distribute workload less effectively. This phenomenon seems to occur because rudeness makes people more selfish and less prosocial, and therefore less able to collaborate efficiently.
The authors conclude that interventions aimed at improving communication or managing emotions can have a significant impact on an organization’s success — especially when the work depends heavily on cooperation.