October 25, 2012

Confronting the passive-aggressive boss

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A friend of mine took on a part-time job not long ago at a small nonprofit organization. The pay was decent, the hours fit with her freelance schedule and she liked the causes being supported. Still, each time I saw her she seemed progressively more stressed about her boss.

After the first week on the job, she says, a pattern began to emerge: Her boss would slowly add more responsibilities, but would fail to explain what he wanted from her. Instead, he'd make subtle accusations, such as, "Didn't I show you how to do that already?" or "I thought I had sent you an email about that." (Turns out he didn't.) Other times, after completing a task exactly as she was trained, she would receive an all-staff email the next day reminding employees of the task's proper procedure; she wasn't named specifically, but the implication was that she'd done something wrong.

Most of us have endured this before — the classic sabotaging tactics of the passive-aggressive boss. Coming from the East Coast, I've seen examples of this behavior a bit more often in the Seattle area, where confrontation cuts against the grain of our polite-at-all-costs tendencies. But for an office team to operate smoothly, communication has to be open and flow two ways.

Writing for Salary.com, contributor Heather Dugan recently posted her "three D's" for surviving encounters with passive-aggressive bosses:

1. Be direct. If a manager tells you "everything's OK," but then begins to withhold communication, speak sarcastically or exhibit defensive body language, chances are the opposite is true. Acknowledge your boss's apparent unease and ask if there is anything you can do to help rectify the situation. This at least brings the issue out in the open and gives your boss the opportunity to give a detailed explanation.
2. Document the behavior whenever possible. Make sure you have a saved set of email exchanges or a paper trail that shows how you attempted to address the issue in a professional manner.


3. Be a duck, in the sense of letting the boss's behavior "roll off your back." This may be Dugan's most important advice: Don't get drawn into a negative spiral with your boss by responding with the same passive-aggressive behavior. This is unproductive and can only end badly for you.

If these tactics fail, I'd add a fourth and final "D" to Dugan's list: depart. That's exactly what my friend did. After about three months of trying to open up a more honest dialogue with her boss, with no apparent change in his behavior, she gave her two weeks' notice. After all, you can only "be a duck" for so long before you find yourself underwater.

Randy Woods writes about job-search tools, networking techniques and other tips to help you land your dream job.

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bosses, communication, conflict, criticism, stress, work/life balance

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Sarah | October 25, 2012 4:59 PM | Reply

Yes, I agree depart should be the fourth "D," otherwise you're just contributing to the success of someone who probably should not be a supervisor as well as depriving yourself of better relationships.

It seems when two people have conflict, most others assign blame for the conflict to both parties. It's nice to have it articulated that actually, there are destructive people (e.g., passive-aggressives) that are difficult to work with.

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