Thank you so much for reading, reflecting and commenting Mike — genuinely appreciated.

It’s a great question you pose and there’s definitely no clear-cut answer.

Its been said that three times as many employees will be passive than aggressive. When pushed too far, a passive employee might become aggressive. To avoid that as a leader a couple of strategies that could help.

• Use positive reinforcement. Passive employees will appreciate a leader’s efforts to create a positive work environment.
• Removing risk. Passive employees tend to be quite risk averse. As a leader, focus on reducing perceived risk by downplaying negative consequences, acknowledging success and celebrating forward momentum and improvement.

Since passive employees care quite a bit about the opinions of others and fitting in, a leader should reinforce the fact that other employees are buying in and help the employee feel included as a valuable contributor to the team’s success.