[CAJobPortal Insights ] Gaslighting at work

Here’s a recent trend that we have been witnessing at CAJobPortal.com’s placement vertical. Candidates are tendering their resignations even without getting a new job – the reason is Gaslighting on the Workfront.

For the uninitiated, Gaslighting at work is when a fellow employee or boss (the gaslighter) manipulates you to the point that you question your own sanity, memory, or perceptions. The gaslighter can do this by denying past events, downplaying your emotions, or retelling events so that you take the blame.

It is a form of psychological manipulation and often present in social interactions where there is an imbalance of power. It could be an insecure boss seeing a talented junior as a threat to him/herself , and thus ensuring that the junior feels extremely uncomfortable and

The origin of the phrase ‘gaslighting’ is in the 1938 play and 1944 film Gaslight, in which a husband manipulates his wife into thinking she has a mental illness by dimming their gas-fueled lights and telling her she is hallucinating.

In the post Covid world, while a lot of good things have happened, the absence of physical interactions has intensified it. In the pre-covid era conversations at ‘water-cooler’ or ‘smoking bay’ were meeting grounds for gas lighters, in more recent times the chat messages alongside video calls have replaced it with greater intensity. Thus ‘gaslighting’ appeared in its new avatar.

Signs that you are being gaslighted

-??????????You hear persistent negative accounts of your performance

-??????????Your boss/team member belittles you in public regularly

-??????????They gossip about you behind your back. By turning your fellow team members against you, the gaslighter can stay in control and make you feel like the bad guy.

-??????????Your efforts, emotions, or perceptions are belittled

-??????????By excluding you from professional activities such as regular meetings, you are made to feel inferior.

If gas lighting is common in your company, you will have broken teams and a toxic culture. The healthy competition at workplace based on skills and creative flow of ideas, will give way to political battles and upstaging games.

Have you identified this trend in your workfront??