Why Good People Do Bad Things - and how to check it's not YOU!

Published on Linked In Jan 12th 2022

The current stressful context has created fertile ground for BAD behaviour – we’ve all seen it – petulant demands, abuse of staff, indignant self-righteous crap – signs have gone up in many places ‘abuse will not be tolerated’ – but still stories abound of even emergency workers being abused whilst trying to help. How and why is this happening? And most importantly how to check it’s not YOU?

So, here’s a checklist for SELF of red flags

1.      The situation at hand creates a strong emotional response in you – at the centre of which is a deep seated feeling of unfairness or INJUSTICE (you can add your own examples)

2.      You feel compelled to act to make things RIGHT – to balance up the scales of justice

3.      The action you have chosen is driven by the emotion within you but you feel justified to do it because:-

a.      THEY deserve to be ‘put in their place’

b.      YOU deserve to get what is fair

c.      It’s a stupid RULE anyway

d.      EVERYBODY else is doing it so why not you

e.      …