3 Techniques for Dealing with Toxic Coworkers

Foreign when it comes to workplace toxicity, almost all of us can remember one of the most toxic characters that have ever been on television and that is the well loved Michael from the Office. And what this character does is he pushes us to the edge and yet maintains this adorableness that makes it quite difficult to hate him unless you still are able to. But what happens if you're stuck in a situation with a Michael or another flavor of workplace toxicity? What do you do? And today I'm going to talk with you about how to deal with workplace toxicity and stay mentally strong while maintaining your boundaries. I'm Dr. Nicole Kane and there is a ton of free stuff in the link in my bio. The goal is to help you turn the page in anxiety, have less depression, and have accesses to resources that can help you get answers that you're looking for in your mental health. My training is as a physician and a clinical psychologist and I'm able to bring together both of these worlds in order to help you get the answers that you're looking for. This video, this file is an answer to a question that we had from one of our community members. And so I'm excited to talk with you about workplace toxicity today. And so have you ever felt completely frustrated with a coworker? So frustrated that you feel like filing a report? Or maybe you feel like just turning in your resignation, or maybe you have entertained a vengeful thought or two? Regardless of your industry, your job role, your particular place in the company, if you work with other people, it is very likely that at one point or another you're going to deal with workplace toxicity. And in this conversation, I'm going to talk with you about three variables and, and what to do about it. The first one is emotional agility. The second is effective problem solving. And the third is knowing your escape plan. So emotional agility is where we're going to start. And so what you need to remember is that ultimately, regardless of the level, flavor and manifestation of toxicity, is that you are the one who is ultimately in control and responsible for your emotions. And so whatever may be happening around you, if you can't control that, which oftentimes you can't when dealing with a toxic person, is that you can work to cultivate a greater sense of personal control. And the first step for that is emotional agility. And so agility refers to your ability to be able to adapt, to be flexible when it comes to emotional stress or emotional difficulty. To be more emotionally agile means that you are able to maintain your, your sense of personal power regardless of what's going on around you. More emotional agility will help you feel more in control in a toxic workplace environment. And so if you've been tonifying those muscles, if somebody like Michael from the office comes along, then you know how to deal with it and you have the personal power for dealing with it. But if you don't have the emotional agility, then these are the circumstances that can start to bleed into your personal life and your professional life. And it can impact your relationships, your self confidence, your emotional well being, your sleep, your career, and so much more. And so I want to actually share with you an exercise that I created in the Anxiety Breakthrough program. And it's called the Power Model. And I designed the Power Model to help increase emotional agility. And it's something that you can do right now in five steps. And the more that you practice it, the more emotional agility you'll have and the better equipped you'll be to deal with toxic workplace consumers. And so I'm going to share that mnemonic with you today. And then after that we're actually going to get into the most common type of toxic workers and what to do about it and how to look out for them. So let's start with the Power mnemonic. So power P, O, W, E, R. P stands for proof, O stands for opposite act, action. W is write your new story, E is emotional renewal. And then R is repeat. And so let's go through this together. If you have something to write with, then pull that out right now. Otherwise this video, this recording will be saved and you'll have access to it later when you have time to get out something to write with so that you can start to work on making this work in your life. So let's start with proof. When something happens in an interaction with, whether it's with leadership, with a coworker, with one of your employees, if something happens and an emotion comes up, the first thing that you want to do is look for proof of how you're concluding that. And so oftentimes when we're looking for proof is that we have a feeling. And that feeling may be tied to the past. That feeling may be tied to a preconceived notion that that feeling may be based on an assumption from your own culture, your own history, your own narrative. And so the very first thing that happens is if somebody is toxic, if somebody says something to you and you have an emotional reaction, the first thing we want to do is look for proof in that emotional reaction is the way that I'M feeling is the thought that I'm having right now, is that valid or is it based on something else? And my emotion is based on something, on something that I can't actually validly prove. Right. So an example of that may be that somebody comes up to me and they're like, you're not contributing to the team. And then I feel really guilty about that. And so there may be this person who's just a really critical co worker. They come up to me, nicole, you're not contributing to the team. You're a freeloader. I start feeling really self critical. I start feeling really anxious. And so then the first thing in the power model is you want to look for proof and that what you're feeling is based on actual fact. And when it comes to dealing with toxic co workers, oftentimes it isn't based on fact, it's based on your experience of abuse from that toxic co worker. So the first step, write down the feeling that you have, write down the thoughts that are surrounding that and then see if it's something that can be validated as proof. Right. Look for proof. The second, the O is opposite action. And so again, this is diving a little deeper. And so we have tendencies to believe things that are said to us that are based on deeper stuff. So if I already have heard in my past or feel like, or worry about not contributing enough to a team, if somebody who's toxic says that to me, even if it's not true, I may pay more attention to it versus if someone gives me a piece of feedback that had never occurred to me as relevant. Right. So we always want to go deeper. And then what we want to do is we want to challenge with the opposite action. We want to challenge the opposite. So what if it's possible, possible that I am actually contributing to this meeting and that Susie over here is feeling worried about her contributions and is blaming me. That's called gaslighting. It's projection. Right. And so you want to start to explore the opposite. So I'm feeling this way. Susie said this to me. I have a past experience of worrying about this general thing to begin with. What if it was possible that the opposite was true? So you start to think about opposite action and then W is to write your new story. So oftentimes there's difficulty in holding the opposites, right? We swing from complete chaos to feeling completely in control or maybe hyper controlling and becoming rigid. Chaos to rigid. And so you may have this fear that's creating anxiety and then you may swing over to trying to be really hyper rigid and control it. But what if we were to try to find something in the middle? So. So I do do a good job, I do contribute, but maybe there's something that I missed the boat on. That is why Susie pointed it out, in addition to the fact that she tends to be more critical. Right. So write your new story with the truths from both sides of the spectrum. And so this is the power model, and we've talked about the first one, which is proof we have opposite action. We have write your new story. And then emotional renewal is where you start to change your emotions based on this new understanding, this new data point of doing the deeper dive. Okay, so there's a little bit of this, a little bit of that. How do I want to feel about that? Is you emotionally renew. You create a mindset that you can then focus on so you can change your emotions going forward. And then the last step is R is repeat. So we've been talking about emotional agility in dealing with toxic co workers. And the whole point of emotional agility in the power model is to help you have the strength to deal with these people. And a big part of that is to target your thoughts so that you know what's coming from you, what's coming from that person, and what deeper kind of concern issue or insecurity may be being triggered by that. So the next step is effective problem solving. And effective problem solving is going to really vary depending on the type of toxicity that you're dealing with. And so I'm going to share with you five primary types of toxic people. People, we're going to describe them a little bit and then I'm going to tell you some of the best research strategies for dealing with these people. Just to interject, if you just joined us, this is Dr. Nicole, and my passion is to help you get your life back, to be free from anxiety, to be resilient if you're dealing with toxic people in the workplace or even toxic people in your life. And so this whole content is an answer to a question that we had from one of our community members. And so let us know how we can support you. If you ever have any questions that we could do a BL or a video or a podcast on, then simply let us know by sending us a dm or once this video has been downloaded, just comment on the video and we make sure to respond as a team to everybody. So we're going to dive in now on the five primary types of toxic co workers. And so number one, and Start thinking about the types of toxic people that you're dealing with and see if you resonate with any of these. And if you do, then start taking notes, because this is for you. Number one is the gossip. The gossip is a type of toxicity where you feel like everywhere you go that there's people talking about other people, there's people sharing secrets, there's people who are communicating. And maybe when you walk in the room, they stop talking or they start sharing. Did you know this about this person? Person with you? And it's a form of artificial intimacy. Artificial intimacy is intimacy that's on the guise of I'm trying to get close to you, but I'm doing it in a pathological or toxic way. And so it's a form of interpersonal connection that's not truly interpersonal or intimate. It's more of treating the person that you're gossiping about or that they're gossiping about as an object. It's a way to create a power dynamic where you know secret information that may or may not be true that you are sharing with other people. And so if you deal with gossips in the workplace, there are a few things that you can do. One is passive and one is direct. Passively is to avoid those people if you have to be in the same space as them, maybe wearing your earbuds, maybe not interacting with them. If they're saying something, don't respond, respond to them. And sometimes passivity works. In other cases, though, passivity could be a form of compliance to a behavior that you don't actually agree with. And so if you want to be direct about it, in the moment where you observe gossiping happening is saying something and calling it out. So, for example, where did you get this information? Is that true? Or oh, wow, is that a fact? Or did blank give you permission to share that? Or this sounds like gossip and I don't want to hear it. So saying something in the moment to cut off the gossip. The risk of this, though, is that if it's a toxic gossip, is that you may be at risk of having the gossip then shifted at you. And so what I always suggest when dealing with toxic people is to document, document, document. Write down what you noticed, write down what people said, write down your response, and just keep a hold of that, because that will be a form of protection for you if you do need it down the road, if things become increasingly hostile, I'll give you some references. We'll do a whole blog about this in the coming weeks and you can read more about how to deal with a workplace gossip. Okay, so that's toxic person number one out of five. And the second one is the competitive. So the competitive encompasses toxic workplace people who are willing to stand on the shoulders, heads, hands, face, whatever of their co workers in order to get themselves to the top. They may engage in behaviors that undermine their colleagues, that throw their colleagues under the bus. And then they may engage in conversation where they're putting other people down, taking credit for things that they don't deserve. And so this can be really toxic if you've been in an environment where you feel like somebody always needs to be in the limelight, and then you're often in their shadow when really they haven't contributed in a way that is authentic. Or perhaps you're in a workplace environment and you're working your nine to five and completing your expectations, but they're putting in 60, 70, 80 hours a week because they're so competitive, and it makes it unrealistic for you, and so you feel like you're not going to ever keep up. This is a type of toxic workplace. And the response to the competitive is three prong. And so the first is to gain understanding and the motivations of your competitive colleague. Where are they coming from? What are they driven by? Do they feel highly insecure? Are they a perfectionist? Are they dealing with trauma? Maybe they're trying to earn more revenue because they're dealing with financial struggles at home. Having empathy gives you information so that you can respond in the best way possible. And oftentimes with these toxic behaviors, there's something underneath of it that's causing a person to be toxic. Just like they say, suffering people cause suffering and hurt people cause hurt. And so if we can lean into understanding their suffering and then work to create solutions that are healing for them, it can create solutions that are also healing for you. So that's the first. Secondly is identifying creative solutions to work collaboratively. And so if you can work collaboratively, how can we do this together? And so that may really depend on your industry. And so if somebody is incredibly competitive, you can work with them. Okay, this is how I feel like I can really contribute to this endeavor. What do you think that you can do and try to work collaboratively? I feel like oftentimes the biggest impulse with a competitive, at least my biggest impulse is to be like, I'll show you I can do better. And then that can feed into the vicious cycle of the competitive, and the toxicity can get worse and worse and worse. So number one, empathy, number two is Creative collaboration. And then number three is emotional distancing. If this person is toxic, if they haven't been willing to show you their suffering by being authentic with you, if they're not willing to come collaborate and work with you, then at that point they've shown you their cards. You just need to emotionally distance. Maybe ask your manager to put you on a different project team or see if you can transfer locations, or just simply avoid them. When they go to the bathroom, you go to the kitchen. If they're at their desk, you go into another space. If you don't have the freedom in your job to relocate yourself, then just simply limit engagement. Okay, so the passive aggressor. This is the third type of toxic co worker. And the passive aggressor can be the trickiest to deal with. The passive aggressor is cynical. They use gaslighting. And gaslighting is really confusing because you start to gas when you're gaslighted. You start to question, am I right? Am I insane? Am I confused? Is this all in my head? Am I doing something wrong? And they're all in the right? The passive aggressor can be really sneaky, even if it's not intentional, but it can be really sneaky. And it's one of the most difficult behaviors to deal with. And so tactics used may be complaining about workplace culture, it may be behaving with hostility, it may be undermining, but it's all done in a really insidious way that's hard to put your finger on in terms of you did this and then that's how. How I felt. But oftentimes it's more like I just feel gross and I don't know what to do about it. I've dealt with a lot of passive aggressive people in my family. I've worked in places where there was the passive aggressive type archetype. And I can tell you that's really hard to deal with. But there are solutions that can be helpful. So the best way to deal with a passive aggressor is to confront it directly. But we want to do it with empathy. So if somebody says something and you have a feeling stopping and saying, what was that? Can we just rewind and can we talk about that moment just a little bit more detail? So let me give you an example. So I had a colleague who was in the kitchen and she was looking at a blender and she was talking about this new type of blender that came out and she was expressing a lot of excitement, excitement about this cool new blender. And she was like, blending up some food. And there's this other co worker who used to be there working at the same office. And the other co worker, she overheard the conversation about the blender and she stops and she looks at my colleague and she says, that blender's been out for like two years. Where have you been? And so it's hostile, it's kind of passive aggressive, because it's not direct, it's just mean. It's insidious. And so the way that that person handled it is she just left the kitchen and felt total shame and sadness and embarrassment. And she was criticizing herself for being such an idiot not knowing about this blender. But if she had wanted to handle it directly, she could stop and say, hey, is everything okay? Or what was that? Or what did you mean by that? Because this is what I heard. Calling it out in the moment. Because if we wait till after the fact, oftentimes the passive aggressor will be like, I was just telling you about blenders. You have to do it in the moment. Because there's so much more in a passive aggressor than what they say. It's how they say it, when they say it, and the context surrounding it. You want to be able to direct it in the moment, but you want to do it with empathy. Because oftentimes these passive aggressive archetypes are actually really insecure and they're inserting things in to try to make themselves feel more powerful, respected or approved of or appreciated. And it's backfiring. We all know that. But by going in with empathy, it may help to defuse the situation and then to be able to directly target it. Even if they don't acknowledge what you're saying, which probably won't happen, you've just put a pin in the map for an incident that you can then reflect back on later if you don't need to elevate it to higher management. Okay, so number four. The number four type of toxic co worker out of five is the pest. And the pest can be any type of annoying co worker. This can be somebody who wastes your time, somebody who doesn't do their work, somebody who's making inappropriate comments, somebody who's making inappropriate sexual advances. It could be somebody is messy or somebody who eats really loudly, or that person in the office that microwaves fish and broccoli every single day. It's somebody that isn't able to read the room. And they're frustrating and annoying and toxically so in their inflexibility and changing their behavior. They're not picking up on social cues. They're not putting you at the top of their priority list as a colleague in a collaborative environment. They're putting themselves at the top, top of it. And this can test your patience. This can make you feel incredibly annoyed and incredibly frustrated. In fact, I had a family member who she was having a fight with somebody over a garbage can position. And so she would come in and the garbage can would get moved into the doorway so that this person that I knew would trip over the garbage can. So she would move it and then that person would move it back, and then she would go through and move it and then that person would move it back. It was harmless, but just really annoying. It was frustrating to the point where this person, my family member, felt like quitting her job because she just felt so irritated having to show up and deal with this stupid garbage can day in and day out. And it could be little things like that, or it could be big toxic things like Michael on the office, like he was a pest and he was incredibly inappropriate and toxic. The cool thing about the pest archetype is it gives us the opportunity to test our limits and to tonify our effective tolerance skills, which we talked about in the beginning of this recording. When dealing with a pest, you may want to deal with them directly or indirectly, just depending on their particular flavor of pestiness. I have some notes here. What I wrote down is the key is to be very clear, clear with your boundaries, because again, the pest just isn't picking up on social cues or they just simply don't care, right? Maybe they like to be annoying like that little brother who just wants to poke you repeatedly until you lose your mind and smack them across the face. And then they go and they tell parents and then you're grounded, right? So sometimes the pests don't pick up on it and other times they're just nefarious. And so the, the key dealing with the pest is to be very clear with your boundaries and be really clear with yourself of how long you're willing to spend with the pest. In what context are you willing to be in the proximity of the pest and for what type of activities. Like, will you tolerate them in meetings or is it so intolerable that you have to put down a meeting boundary where I can't go to meetings if the pest is there? Boundaries is key when dealing with the pest. You're going to want to be direct, you're going to want to be straight. Of course, have empathy because again, suffering people cause suffering. And so the pest is probably a suffering person that's pestering you and it's very likely that they're pestering other people as well. The last type of toxic workplace colleague is the hostile workplace colleague and this one is the most dangerous, this one is the most insidious. The hostile colleague is cruel, abusive, can be emotionally abusive, psychologically abusive, can be physically abusive, sexually abusive. Hostile workplace environments are a game changer. It can bleed into your personal life, it can bleed into your romantic life, your family life, it can actually change your trajectory and in your career it can affect your emotional well being and your wellness. And so hostile workplace environment is something that's really important to take seriously. And I actually have some six signs that you're in a hostile work environment and that you need to employ your exit strategy. So those are coming next. But let's talk a little bit more about the hostile co worker and what to do about it. So I want to make sure I don't miss anything and so going to, I'm going to read from my notes here. So one of the most difficult toxic co workers is the hostile. They can be rude, cruel, threatening. And the most important thing you need to remember when dealing with these types of co workers is that your needs and your boundaries must be a priority. And you must assume that conflict will happen. With hostile work personalities, conflict will happen. Assuming, assume that conflict will happen and be prepared and know how you need to deal with it. Do not let it cut you off guard. Be prepared. So step one is when you can, is take the high road. Don't get into their drama when they deliver low blows. Maintain professionality because your decorum is something that will go with you if it needs to be brought up to higher level management. And again, you want to maintain professionalism, you, you want to take the high road. Do not get wrapped up in the emotion or drama that's going to fuel the fire and it's going to make it more intense, more hostile and it's going to end up compromising your professionality in your job and in your life. Staying your common collective self will be very helpful for you as an asset. And then again, document, document, document. Every time an incident happens, write it down as objectively and clearly as you can. And if there is a system in place in your place of employment, then file a report. Every single time, file a report. If you didn't write it down, it didn't happen, right? So write it down. Stay professional. Step number two is to practice radical empathy. And we call it radical empathy because it's empathy that is given when somebody doesn't earn it, warrant it, or deserve it. And again, typically hurting people are hurt people. They may have grown up in an abusive environment, and then they're replaying that abuse in the workplace environment. And I'm not saying to accept that behavior or to give them an excuse for their behavior, but by identifying where they're coming from, it can help you target solutions that will help to modify the root of their behaviors instead of strong arming them into comparison. And this is especially important if you're in a leadership position, is that if you have a colleague and this person may be working under you or working alongside you, or maybe you're managing them, is if you can try to understand their suffering and what kinds of things are happening that activate them. Working with that will be so much more powerful than trying to confront the behavior aggressively, because these type of hostile people will feed off of these that aggression. So number two is to practice radical empathy. And then number three, step three is to get a third party involved. Oftentimes with a hostile work environment, we cannot resolve it on ourselves. Conflict will happen. Unless that person is doing really deep work to get to the root cause of their hostility, it's probably going to continue happening. And so get a third party involved sometimes. Babe, you can't win. No matter how hard you try, no matter how much emotional agility you're cultivating. You've been practicing the power mnemonic every single hour of every single day, and yet you show up and this person continues to be hostile. And this is why you need to know your limits at the beginning. This is why you have to have a plan at the beginning. Because once you hit your limit and you've reached out to hr, you've reached out to management, and once this behavior has continued to the point beyond what you feel like is okay, acceptable and reasonable for you to deal with, then we go to the overarching step three of this whole conversation, which is knowing your exit strategy. After all is said and done, it comes the time when the negatives outweigh the positives. And if the circumstances have made it clear that putting up a healthy boundary is necessary and protective, but not being heard, honored and respected. And if you have gotten to the breaking point, or ideally before you hit your breaking point, you're at this place where you're questioning if you need to leave. I have six signs that you actually need to employ your exit strategy. And that's how we're going to Finish up today. The six signs that you need to employ your exit strategy. So if you're in a toxic work environment, if you have any one of these five types of toxic co workers who, by the way, could ebb and flow in and out and overlap like a Venn diagram, and you may have someone who's hostile and who's also a pest. Right. You could have a blending of these things. And if it's getting to the point where you are at the end of your rope, where it's coming into your home life, then it's time to leave. And so your six signs that you need to employ your exit strategy. Number one is you feel bullied or harassed. Your work environment should be safe. You should never feel bullied or harassed at your work environment. Never. Something happens, you put forward creative solutions, you go to higher management. If it's not resolved, you need to move on to your next chapter. Okay? Number two is you feel at risk for physical, mental, emotional, psychological or sexual harm. If you feel at risk of harm, it's time to employ your exit strategy. It's time to leave. Okay? Number three, you've communicated your needs and they're not being heard, they're not being paid attention to. You're being deprioritized. Action hasn't been taken. Your management, your hr, isn't receiving your feedback and putting in action something to protect you. Number four is you have made reasonable personal adjustments to your behavior and your expectations. You've on your own work, you've done the emotional agility work, you've worked on your communication, you've employed the strategies that the literature says to try, and it's not working. You've gotten to the point where it's out of your hands. Just like we said at the beginning, you can control yourself, you cannot control other people. And so if you are stuck in a rut where you're doing everything you can and nothing is appreciably changing, it's time to go. And if, and lastly, and if your work environment is bleeding into your personal life in a negative way, if you feel depressed, if you've had to go onto medications because of your job, if you've had to go to the hospital because of your job, if you feel like you can't function on your days off because you are so emotionally and physically depleted from your job, if it's bleeding into your relationships, into your happiness, into your hope and your joy and your goals and your future, if your job is stealing your life, it is time to move on. This is a lot, right? We've been talking about toxic co workers. We've been talking about staying mentally strong and keeping your boundaries. We went over the emotional agility, how to be emotionally strong. We talked about effective problem solving, and we applied it to the five most common, common types of toxic co workers. And then we talked about the six signs that you need to move on to the next chapter. And so this is a question that we get asked all the time. And if you're resonating with this, it's very likely that there's somebody in your circle that would benefit from this knowledge too. And so if you can, if you're willing, is share this video, share the recording, share the blog, once that gets put up in a couple of weeks because because people need to know that they have an option, that they don't have to be victims of workplace toxicity, that they don't deserve it, that there are places out there where they can be safeguarded and protected. And knowing our worth and knowing when it's not okay can be incredibly freeing and life saving. Thank you so much for listening. This has been Dr. Nicole I have a podcast, the get yout Life Back Podcast podcast, and you can find that on Spotify and Apple Music. You could also find links to it in my YouTube. If you haven't checked out the link in the bio above. We have a ton of awesome free resources, so please check them out and then as always, any questions that we can answer for you or resources we can provide for you, let us know. We're always looking for new topics to share on these lives and so please let us know what would be interesting to you. The comments that happen in the live video don't download once I end up ending the video and saving it. And so if there's something that you want to make sure that I see is if you can pop back in in just a moment and put a comment on the video or just send us a DM and my team and I will see it anyway. It's been so good to see you. I honor you, I love you, I respect you, and I will see you next time than.