Why Do Chronic Complainers Complain?

10/09/2008

Why Do Chronic Complainers Complain?

In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.
Albert Camus

In this week's Exchange Insta Poll, both center directors and teachers indicated that chronic complainers are a major source of stress in their work lives. An article in the new Exchange CD Book: Leading People in Early Childhood Settings, "Coping with the Chronic Complainer," discusses types of complainers and offers some techniques for dealing with them. In addition, it addresses why people complain:

Why is it that some people are intent upon solving problems while others are seemingly content just to whine about them? Robert M. Bramson suggests that three factors in the chronic complainers' view of the world contribute to their ineffectual approach to problem solving:

Chronic complainers believe they are powerless. They feel like they have no control over the management of their own lives, "as if the causes of all that happens to them lie outside their grasp." As a result, they believe that problems can only be solved by getting others who are powerful, such as you the director, first to take heed, and then to take action.
Chronic complainers have a consuming sense of injustice. They have an image of the way things ought to be, and a high level of frustration that they are not like that.
Chronic complainers believe they are doing good. Since they feel they are powerless to solve problems themselves, all they can do is to bring these problems to someone else's attention. Once they have warned you about the problem, they have done their part. Now it's up to you to act. It's no longer their problem.

This sets in motion a never ending cycle. It doesn't take long before the constant griping of the chronic complainer annoys the target of the complaints. So instead of action, they get impatience, patronizing dismissal, or avoidance. Since they have turned the problem over to you and you've refused to act, this makes them even angrier with you. It confirms their feeling of powerlessness, and it heightens their sense of injustice. So they respond with even more complaining, and the cycle continues.

Leadership Articles Galore

The new Exchange CD Book, Leading People in Early Childhood Settings, is now available for purchase. The CD includes 50 Exchange articles addressing the following topics:

Leadership Basics
Leadership Challenges
Supervisory Basics
Meeting Staff Needs
Motivating Staff
Managing Difficult People
Managing Difficult Issues

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For more information about Exchange's magazine, books, and other products pertaining to ECE, go to www.ccie.com.