You might be a C-Suite level boss with many managers below you. Many in your management pool may carry over their personal dysfunctions into their work life. Truly, “Who you are is how you lead”.
Not sure if the employee is passive aggressive or just passive? Passive Aggression is an indirect way to express hostility. You could compare it to a stab in the back vs. a slap on the face. It can be confusing, at first, to identify what’s going on because it can be so subtle. Some common identifiers of passive aggression:
- Not showing up at meetings, being habitually late, or leaving early when others are pressing in
- Calling in sick at key times
- Making lots of excuses and blame-casting for poor behavior
- Withholding information from other team members
- Making inappropriate remarks and then passing it off as a joke
- Sarcasm
- Dragging out simple processes from approving forms or dispensing reimbursements to approving transfers and promotions
- Feigning ignorance about the impact of their behavior on their colleagues and subordinates
These employees and managers can be your in-house saboteurs. This behavior sets a negative tone at work, builds walls between departments and politicizes the environment. It also amplifies other employees’ negative feelings, thus becoming a contagion of discontent. We become complicit when we allow such behavior to go unaddressed. Continue reading
All of us have seen them. Some of us have worked for them. Some of us have been them. You know ” them” : the screamer; the humiliator; the total dominator; the letch (male or female); the misogynist; the man-hater; the racist; the narcissist; the incompetent; the ostracizer; the blamer…need I go on?