I was very interested in a recent column on work place dysfunction. A reader sent in a question about the lack of defined roles and conflict mediation, which lead to anxiety about job performance, backstabbing, and turf wars. The assessment of this situation? Feedback from management could alleviate some anxiety about job performance, and when people know how they’re doing, this would reduce insecure coworkers from engaging in bad office politics and discourage office backstabbers.
What is Backstabbing? Instead of confronting the situation openly, a backstabber would channel that anger or resentment to silently injure a coworker or another person. In the past I’ve talked about how to start dealing with backstabbers, where I suggest that calling out a backstabber may be an effective way to curtail a backstabber. Opening communication is like airing out an infection, sometimes you need to expose the wound and kill off the anaerobes before healing can take place. If the victim fumes in silence, this may create fertile ground for backstabbers to build on.
Is Increasing Feedback an Answer? I think management feedback may help improve general workplace anxiety related to job performance, but I am not sure that additional feedback will disarm backstabbers and mute office gossips. The psychology of backstabbing and gossiping is working for backstabbers and gossips, which is why backstabbing and gossiping continues. Some have suggested that backstabbers are passive-aggressive people who avoid confrontation. Medline Plus Encyclopedia states that psychologists no longer recognize passive-aggressive in an official diagnosis (I guess that means we won’t see a drug ad on TV for it), and defines passive-aggressive as a personality disorder ” in which a person seems to passively comply with the desires and needs of others, but actually passively resists them, becoming increasingly hostile and angry.” A backstabber may just smile at the feedback, and continue backstabbing as usual.
Did Backstabbers Invent Office Politics? Is workplace insecurity really why people gossip or why coworkers back-stab each other? The question, “How to deal with backstabbers” accompanies “how to deal with office politics” so often that I wonder if backstabbers are the originators of office politics. I believe some people derive a great deal of pleasure gossiping about other people – a way for the person gossiping to relieve tension or stress by shifting negative attention to someone else. Likewise, I believe some people find backstabbing fun – a way for the person backstabbing to witness how he or she can manipulate the workplace to create an environment that may be experienced as fun or exciting for the backstabber, at the expense of coworkers.
Do backstabbers exist because backstabbing works? I’m not asking a rhetorical question here – if you have a theory about backstabbing and office politics let me know.
Source: Functioning Amid Dysfunction.
