Handling Betrayals in the Workplace - The Candid Coaching Series

What is Betrayal?

According to Wikipedia, betrayal is the breaking or violation of a presumptive contract, trust, or confidence that produces moral and psychological conflict within a relationship amongst individuals, between organizations or between individuals and organizations..

Betrayal is indeed a noun with layers of complexities and I will not attempt to simplify its meaning. We have all experienced varied degrees of this act or experience causing distress at an emotional, psychological, intellectual, physical and spiritual level with different consequences and reactions. In a world where narcissism and faking it in the workplace are becoming prevalent, I often wonder what's the best way to deal with normalized betrayals in the workplace - especially if you happen to have ethics and strive to be authentic. This article aims to explore this theme and share researched and experience based practical tips gathered on how to cope and stand for yourself.

Classic Scenarios of Betrayals

First off, here's some classic examples of how betrayal plays out:

1. Your Boss or Colleague took all the credits for the work you delivered with no acknowledgement or thank you.
2. A colleague breaks your trust and shares your confidential or private information.
3. You are excluded from gatherings, meetings, events, promotions, salary increases, awards despite your proven delivery track record and/or your job role.
4. Broken Promises - You were promised something tangible such as training, work assistance, leave, bonuses or mentoring...Instead you were left to fend for yourself or left waiting forever.
5. You are being framed or blamed for something that you either got tricked into or for behaviors that were projected onto you.

These scenarios happen more often than not, especially if we lack discernment, trust easily, are people pleasers or are desperate to prove our worth. Young individuals just starting off their career are often the most susceptible. I have learnt the hard way that these experiences must not harden us to a point of becoming cynics and change our personality dramatically. Instead, we should accept these as lessons which help us grow our resilience.

Practical Tips to Handling Betrayals at Work

• Acknowledge being betrayed: If you feel betrayed and you are doubting yourself, watch out that you are not being a victim of gaslighting. It is important to acknowledge and have awareness of betrayal to avoid vicious circles. Reach out to your support circle if you need validation or confirmation.

• Have a Strong Support System: As referred in the previous point, it is critical to build and have a strong support system in general. Having access to a wealth of advice and/or simply having a listening ear can go a long way as part of your coping mechanisms. Your support system can be a mixture of friends, family, professional coach, mentor, counselors amongst others. Also, if you do not have one, start small and build one where you can start with professional wellness assistance and public services that can guide you.
• Set Clear Protective Boundaries: Once you've acknowledged being betrayed, it is important to protect yourself. Depending on your circumstances, try and apply distance in the form of boundaries. Boundaries are very healthy and can be in the form of ascertaining your job scope, your contractual obligations and rights (and limits as well!), your values and need for space. You can request for meetings to be recorded as well to keep everything transparent and formal. You need time and space to recover, process and heal from the betrayal. If you are not careful, you may find yourself going into a full melt down or breakdown.
• Be Your Own Hero: It starts by knowing your worth. We often tolerate abuse in the workplace because we are desperate for the job or believe that it will go away or that we deserve it. Either way, it is always good practice to introspect on your own responsibility/accountability and how to prevent repetitive unhealthy scenarios to play out at work. Ask yourself questions such as: "How are you inviting such situations at work?", "What can I do differently to remain productive at work with less disruption and harm?". Implement changes and finetune your behavior and attitude to grow positively from that experience. Most importantly, by owning your own story, you move away from a victim mindset to a survivor mindset. The last thing you want to be is simply a victim is someone else's story.
• Recycle the Bad\Negative Energy: As you walk away from betrayals, allow the emotions to come out in a healthy way. You cannot heal and forgive if you do not express yourself. One of the best thing you can do is to take all the bad energy and feed it into fulfilling or fun hobbies and projects. For example: Hiking, Journaling, Boxing, Craftwork, Dancing, etc.
• Live and Let Live: A simple philosophy to focus on living your best life with tolerance and detachment as well. If you can learn to not take things too personally at work and focus on your goal/duties at work, you are already less prone to betrayals. It is key to be able to move on from the bad experiences. If you are a believer that we will all reap what we sow, rather focus on your wellbeing, learning the lessons, growth and forgiving yourself. Stop giving too much time, focus and energy to the wrong people.

In a nutshell, not all betrayals mean that you have to walk away or give up on everything that you worked for. It is really only the last resort when you run out of options or you are beyond a position to manage the impact on your health and life. In the long run, your best bet is to continuously build your resilience and self-worth to be able to bounce back with clarity, humility and focus.

If you found this article useful, please do share and I thank you for your time.

Some extra reading and sources:

1. https://hbr.org/2019/07/what-to-do-when-your-boss-betrays-you
2. https://www.ccl.org/blog/betrayed-workplace-7-steps-healing/