Lessons learnt… from toxic people

I've thought many times at this subject but I haven’t found till now the pause to turn it into an article about toxic people, more specifically about toxic employees, colleagues, bosses or toxic workplaces. I have met them frequently in my professional life. Maybe, you too. I was like a magnet for such people or places. It took me some time to find the reasons for being such a magnet and it was very difficult to accept and overcome the situation.

Eventually I was lucky enough to find the suitable ways to deal with these contexts and to create out of these experiences some valuable lessons which I’m finally ready to share with you.   

How do we recognize toxic people in organizations or in relationships?

It is important to learn this, because if you get to know the main features of a toxic person, whether it is a relative, a colleague, a boss, a neighbor, a leader or a politician, it will sharpen your radar, making their manipulations easier to unmask and minimize their power over you.

Toxic people are building around them an unpleasant ambience, draining your vitality.  They are just hard to spend time with. You get quickly very tired as they are consuming your energy without you realize that.

Toxic people always manipulate people and situations to their advantage. They are able to convince you that you were born to please them or worse, to worship them. They make you believe you are responsible for their feelings and moods and that you must be always guilty of something. Their beloved phrase is: “it is only your fault”. Even if someone else sets fire somewhere, in a distant spot on the planet, you might be guilty of that too.

Then slowly, you start feeling guilty for every natural or artificial catastrophe, for everything is not working properly in this world. And a side effect is that you start being afraid of making mistakes and trying new things because the smallest error is being put under the magnifying glasses of your colleague who will instantly report you in a more or less aggressive manner or keep a tracking file of your flaws. 

What to do? STOP feeling guilty or afraid of making mistakes.  Easy to say, harder to do. I’m still working on this so I will detail it at a later time;)

Maybe you still wonder why your colleague with whom you are sharing a small spot in the private or open office is completely lovely one day with you, sharing with you even too many details from his or her personal life, keeping you therefore up to date with the number of teeth the eldest son is having now in the mouth, the length of the poems the youngest kid is able to recite out of the short term memory in front of a small audience or how many beers the husband drank last evening, alone in the balcony. Suddenly the next day you will spend some time of your morning coffee break wondering what you’ve done to upset the same colleague who was telling you just a day before so many secrets.

There often isn’t anything obvious that will explain the change of attitude – but in the next second you are asking yourself: “what did I do or say wrong?” and start apologizing clumsily (for nothing) or doing everything you can to make your colleague happy and talkative… again.

As you are thinking that it might be better for the sake of your daily tasks to intensively practice your active listening skills in order to get the updates about your colleague’s plans for the exotic summer holidays  and develop your peripheral vision while throwing from time to time a diplomatic yet forced smile towards your colleague, smile which should speak out the truth “hey I’m not interested in this shit” but instead of that is encouraging your colleague to continue the relentless chatter … than to waste your day finding excuses for your colleague’s bad mood.

Why? Because we prefer to go the safer and easier way. Counting the teeth of your colleague’s kid is safer than going on moving sands in the middle of nowhere.

The irony is that this bad mood of your colleague is turning against you. At the end of the day, he or she will ask you “what is the matter with you? You’ve been in a bad mood all day.’” The bad mood is suddenly yours not his or hers because your toxic colleague is never ready to owe his or her feelings. So… he or she gives with generosity those feelings to you… The psychological word for that is “projection”.

And it is so simple to project! We learn it from our childhood, when our parents or others around us get angry but do not take responsibility for their state accusing you of being angry with them. How could parents ever admit that they can get angry? After all, they are not humans… they are perfect creatures who were never kids and never made mistakes…

In this educational pattern, unfortunately, we are thinking too much at ourselves… and we are feeling too less about the others…

Anyway, in the worst case, you believe them. But there is still hope for you, to recover yourself. It is never too late in the learning process which makes learning one of the most beautiful things in life. So if you find yourself justifying and defending yourself all day long running inside a circle, 

STOP for one moment and put a line between what is yours and what is theirs.

Remember also that it’s not about you. With a little imagination you can even put yourself in his or her shoes to feel and understand the other’s state or you can turn into a neutral observer who looks silently at both of you: the projector and the projected.

Remember also when you encounter a toxic person: alongside their unpredictability, they are gifted with rigidity. Flexibility is for them a sign of weakness. Toxic people are incapable of accepting different opinions or beliefs, always fighting for their point of view until the situation becomes embarrassing. They are incapable to adapt to people or contexts. And with that comes a high set of expectations from the toxic person: they expect people, places, even laws and rules adjust to them. Their motto: “Do this because I say so and I know better.”

How about working with toxic bosses?

I have rarely had the "pleasure" to work with toxic bosses, but I have close friends who had suffered a lot from such experiences and I’ve got some insights to complete the picture.

They make you feel, you owe them something. They have a tricky way to use you or to hurt you, then immediately claiming they were doing it all for you and your benefit. In order for you to learn or to get stronger or to have more success.   

The truth is... You don’t owe anybody anything. Only to life. You owe your life, your own death. That’s all. I met this metaphor at school at a Romanian poet in one of his poems and it became one of my constant beliefs in life.

Toxic bosses are also talented in using non-toxic word in a toxic tone, like “What did you do today?” which can hide the accusation “you did nothing, didn’t you?” And they love to judge you and to remind you of your past errors exaggerating and generalizing your contextual actions, by using adverbs like “you always”, “you never” etc.

What to do? DO NOT PAY ATTENTION. It is time for you to learn how to lose a battle. But your self-esteem eventually will remain intact.

Some other habits that toxic bosses have that you may have already noticed so far:  they do not have time for you, as they are always on the run, a bundle of nerves that imprint a stressful and unpleasant working environment.  And unfortunately, sad but true, they do not take annual reviews seriously, even if the most used concept in organizational management is… performance management.

And if you think that drama or other theatrical representations are to find only on the podium, you are wrong. As long as you feel obliged to choose him or her instead of something else – toxic persons will often put you in this situation to choose between them and something else – you are inside the drama, playing the stupid role of one of the main characters. 

In personal life you will hear much too often: “If you really cared about me you’d skip your personal development training and spend time with me.”

While in the office: “‘If you really cared about having results in your job, you would have continued working on this as long as necessary, eventually spend the night in the office.”

What to do in these crazy situations?  Get instant divorce at home and find another job in your professional life. No... I'm joking. These are too extreme solutions for extreme situations which I both experienced in my life and from which I learnt a lot, really a lot. That is why I do not recommend anybody, unless it is really necessary  or until you have exhausted all other options...

which are...

“Let go of the people who dull your shine, poison your spirit and bring you drama. Cancel your subscription to their issues” Dr. Steve Maraboli

which for me means...

Stay away from toxic people, limit your time with such people as much as possible. Set boundaries. And stop feeling guilty about that. After all, they are like a poison, as they do nothing to enrich your life and career, or make it any easier or more successful. So why to feel guilty about giving up poison?

What else? Do not share confidence with them as anything you say to a toxic person will turn against you and will be repeated in a negative or apocalyptic way.

And avoid being a shoulder to cry on. As it is useless. Nothing you can say will cheer up a toxic person – they enjoy being a victim. It is their mission in life.  Save your energies for those who genuinely deserve them, or who make you feel better, not worse.

What else can you do?

Do not even think or try to change a toxic person. It is impossible. Eventually tell them clearly what you expect and ask them if they have any questions or objections to it.  Ask what solution they would suggest if they were in your place. Be positive but realistic, acknowledge any complaints they make but don’t agree with them. Maintain normal eye contact to show you’re not intimidated. Use firm body language – plant your feet firmly on the floor a little way apart, stand tall and straight and avoid defensive gestures by keeping your arms relaxed by your sides.  Stand firm and don’t let them get their own way if they’re being unreasonable.

If possible, leave tactfully the theatrical scene, or at least invite others in the discussion as soon as possible. This helps deflect the negative energy off you and can help get you a chance to break free without appearing to reject the toxic person, as they are very sensitive to rejection and could react aggressively. 

Or if you are the superior of a toxic employee which is too valuable for the company (in terms of his or her technical skills) to get rid of him or her, take some money from the training budget  and send him or her to a good therapy program.

Most toxic people have traits of narcissistic, antisocial or borderline personality disorders which could be treated by mental health professionals. 

Oh, almost forgot: do this small exercise called "check the ecology". Ecology is the study of consequences in NLP which keeps a balance of elements in any system. It reflects the overall relationship between a person and their thoughts, behaviors, values and beliefs as well as the positive impact of our decisions, behaviors, and feelings on others.  Ecology is important in considering our goals in order to ensure that the impact of achieving the outcome is positive for us and those around us and that achieving it is congruent with our goals and desired code of conduct.

Therefore, doing an ecology check is checking the consequences of our current and future actions and plans on us and on the others. Some helpful questions to do this exercise are:

What are the wider consequences of my action? What will I lose if I make this action or change ? What will I gain if I make this? How will my action affect others? Does it go against any of their values? How will they react?  Does this matter? Is it worth it?... 

You will be surprised discovering that you also were long time ago or still are toxic for people around you or for yourself. But the good news is that once you acknowledge and accept this, you are making the first step in healing and turning into a normal person...back to life, back to normality.