Prindle Institute



Managing Passive Aggression Andy: From my home office on behalf of the Prindle Institute for Ethics at DePauw University, this is Getting Ethics to Work, the podcast that tackles the trickier moral dilemmas that you might face in the workplace. I'm your host and Prindle Institute director, Andy Cullison, and with me is our producer, Kate Berry.Kate: Hello. For each episode of Getting Ethics to Work, we discuss a case or issue and unpack the difficult and often hidden ethical tensions that can make it hard to get along with others at work. And by the way, case is just an ethicist word for story.Andy: Now, before we get started, I want to remind everyone that we are not lawyers, and are not offering legal expertise. But as an ethicist, I can help you think about how moral reasoning helps with passive…you know what, forget it, forget I said anything…Kate: And if you'd like what you've been hearing and want to help us out, the best thing you can do is recommend the show to a friend or leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. I hope you'll consider doing that.Andy: So Kate, do we have another listener letter?Kate: We do! We've got a letter from Dale, who had some very nice things to say about us. But he listened to our episode that came out a couple months ago about cc’ing the boss. We had a case about Ali and Tamika, and he felt that it would be valuable to discuss the boss's situation. He said that he assumed a competent boss would realize the passive-aggressive behavior of the cc'er, and how should the boss deal with this? So I thought we should talk about passive aggression.Andy: I think that's a great idea, I really like the idea of taking up Dale's question as it related to the cc'ing case, but in these times, with all the stress and anxiety that people are going through with, you know, the debate about whether or not to reopen the schools, and facing what appears to be something like a second wave, tensions are probably pretty high, and I wouldn't be surprised if folks are right now experiencing a bit more passive-aggressive behaviors in the workplace and with their coworkers, and so, you know, that's another good reason to take up this issue right now. So, let's get to work. I think it'd be good to start by just listing some examples of passive-aggressive behavior, get those on the table, and we can see if there's some kind of commonality there that might help develop a strategy. Of course, as Dale noted, the cc'ing the boss cases seemed like examples of passive-aggressive behavior, right?Kate: Yeah, if you haven't already listened to our cc'ing episode, I hope you'll go back and check it out, but essentially, one coworker was cc'ing the boss about another coworker to point out what she didn't know.Andy: Other examples include things like deliberate inefficiency, working more slowly, dragging your heels, maybe you deliberately miss a deadline, what I said at the beginning of the show, in the joke where I was like, "Forget it, forget I said anything." Right? We sometimes interpret when people behave that way as a kind of passive-aggression. Kate, do we have other examples?Kate: Sure. Avoiding responsibility, sort of, pinning blame on other people... in this source we have from Psychology Today, they even have showing up late as a potential example of passive-aggression.Andy: Yup. Yeah, so these are all good examples, and there's an article in Psychology Today, Kate, I think you brought this to my attention. Don't they have a candidate diagnosis of what might be going on in a lot of these cases of passive-aggression?Kate: Yeah, at least, they say that the source of passive-aggression at work is often anger, insecurity, or anxiety.Andy: That interesting. And the reason I find that interesting is because I think we can take this a step further. You know what we say, that often tensions in the workplace, they're sort of hidden moral tensions. This is a really good way to illustrate that point, because if you think that passive-aggression is ultimately the result of anger, insecurity, or anxiety, the way you can take it a step further and bring ethics into it is that most anger and even anxiety stems from a kind of fear, or a belief that something about the situation is bad. And a belief that something is bad is ultimately a kind of moral belief, or a kind of belief about value. Same thing for anxiety, there's certain kinds of fears, and usually those kinds of fears involve thoughts about certain things being good or bad. And again, thoughts about things being good or bad are ultimately moral beliefs. And so, I think there's a line to be drawn from a lot of examples of passive-aggressive behavior to an underlying difference of opinion about value, morality, ethics, those more ethics-y kinds of notions. So I think that's why I was excited to talk about passive-aggression, because the phenomena in general is a good illustration of that point, that when there are tensions, there's usually ethics stuff going on in the background.Kate: And passive-aggression is just one more layer on top of that, of the source of the tension is a little bit more hidden, or someone is not being honest about what their problem is.Andy: Right, and I think when you experience passive-aggression, like I said, there's likely some kind of moral or value disagreement. And something else might be going on related to what you might call moral reasoning. There are going to be a lot of times in cases of passive-aggression, it seems to me, at least when I've experienced it, there are a few things that might be going on that make them not comfortable talking about whatever it is that source of disagreement is. They might fear retaliation. They maybe they don't like to talk about difficult moral dilemmas because they don't like that kind of confrontation. Maybe it's that they've just got some kind of gut feeling that something just doesn't seem right, but they don't quite have the vocabulary to talk about why they think the thing in question is wrong. They might be feeling powerless, like, that whoever I'm dealing with there's just no reasoning with them, and so what's the point? And then they feel kind of hopeless and resort to passive-aggression. My sense is, it's a disagreement about values, oftentimes, and some kind of reluctance, for a wide variety of reasons, of wanting to talk about that disagreement.Kate: So what do you do if you are either experiencing, or maybe acting in a way that's passive-aggressive at work?Andy: Well, if it really comes from some kind of disagreement about values, and some kind of stumbling block when it comes to talking about it, I think the key advice would be you've got to zero in on what that source of disagreement is, you've got to figure out what that value tension is. Figure out what that conflict of values is. And then figure out what it is about the person that makes them unwilling to address that disagreement head on and talk about it. We can walk through some of our examples. So, let's take the cc'ing the boss episode. What came out in that episode was that, oftentimes when people are cc'ing the boss in the passive-aggressive way, it's because they don't trust the person they're emailing, and they want to communicate that distrust to that person and maybe to the boss. And the reason that they do not trust that person is probably going to be because they have a problem with the way they've done things, right? And there's your, sort of, moral disagreement, they think they went about something in the wrong sort of way. I mean, on the assumption that the cc'ing involves a kind of lack of trust, you, sort of, rule it out, and then if you wanted to address it head on, you could say, “Hey, you know, I noticed that whenever you email so and so, you're cc'ing me, and it kind of makes me think that you have a problem with the way they've done something, or you don't trust the work that they do. And so could you... is there something about the way the person operates that is giving you a concern? Are you all not in agreement about how best to execute the project,” I mean, whatever the reason for the email is, but, you know, just say, “Hey, I feel like there might be an issue here, you know. Do you want to talk about it?" And hopefully that opens the road to resolving whatever the issue is.?Kate: Yeah. Let's say that someone missed a deadline, that maybe they're typically a good worker but then with a big project, that it just sort of passed them by and they didn't get it together in time. That is a possible example of passive-aggression, what do you think a boss might say to that person?Andy: Missing deadlines is kind of tricky too, because there are all sorts of reasons that people might miss deadlines. But if you suspect that the missing of the deadline is someone is intentionally dragging their heels, there are probably going to be other clues that that's what's going on. Whenever I've encountered a failure to perform that I thought was passive-aggression rather than something else, usually it's from someone who I already had reason to believe wasn't really excited about the project, right? They didn't want to do it, they don't want us to go down this course of action, that kind of thing. And so if I feel like someone's missing a deadline for passive-aggression reasons, I might say something to them, like “Hey, normally these kinds of things aren't issues, normally something like this wouldn't bog you down. Makes me think you're not really motivated about what we're doing, and you know, maybe... I remember when we were talking about this project, you had these reasons to object, so maybe we should revisit whether or not this project's a good idea or not. Is this really a workload thing, or is this an enthusiasm thing?” And then you've, you've opened the conversation and, importantly, I think, you've invited them in, like hey... you're not shaming them for having missed the deadline. You're respecting that they're normally very good at their jobs, and you've invited a conversation, like, “Hey, if this project is a terrible idea, let's revisit it. Because if you're still having doubts about it, then we didn't resolve... I thought we had resolved those doubts in the meeting, so... let's put pause on it, and sit down and talk about it. So could you go over your objections again?” Or something like that.Kate: And what about the example from your joke at the top of the show? The sort of bringing something up and then "Forget it, I shouldn't have said anything, it doesn't matter, whatever."Andy: "Forget it, whatever."Kate: Yeah, yeah. What about something like that?Andy: Well, that usually comes up when someone raises a point, right? They've started to say something, where they've said something and you responded in a way that suddenly made them like, “Oh gosh, I don't want to go down this road.” I feel like the "Forget it, forget I said anything, let's just drop it, "this could come from a lot of different sources, but to me, some common ones are, they don't know how to articulate their disagreement, or they realized that their first steps, based on what you said back to them, they realize that their first stab didn't make their disagreement clear or didn't make their point clear. And now they've just lost confidence in being able to talk to you about it. They're like, “Oh, I don't know how to articulate what it is I'm feeling here.” And the thing they don't know how to articulate is probably underpinning some kind of value disagreement that they might have with you. If it's that, then, a lot of empathy and giving them the space to say something that might not be fully fleshed out. I'm fortunate, I think, one thing I learned in, from philosophy, that's my academic background, is it's actually really hard to say anything clearly. (laughs) Really, really hard.Kate: You should listen to the rough edits of this show. (laughs) My gosh, I can barely get a sentence out.Andy: What they need to know from you is that they can say half-baked things, they can say, "I don't know quite how to say what it is I'm thinking, but here's a stab at it." They need permission for a conversation to be a little bit messy and unclear as they like, you know, and you be the sounding board, like talk me through this. It's hard without a particular example, but, yeah, if they're insecure about talking to you about their disagreement, you just need to slow down, and be ready to listen, and talk with them about it.Kate: What about someone who is pretty confident in the way they communicate, but still says, you know, brings up something and then is like, "Forget it, whatever." Like, I feel like that could also come from someplace else.Andy: Yeah, it can. So it can come from a place of a lack of confidence, but it can also come from a place of they actually have a negative attitude about you in some way, shape, or form. I think sometimes people do the "Forget it, forget about it" when they think there's no reasonable hope of reasoning with you. They think you are stubborn, they think you don't get it, maybe they think you don't understand the domain that we're talking about. You know, when you think someone can't be reasoned with, its sort of like, well, why try? And then so once you're in that moment where you've said something, they've said something argumentative back to you, you're like, “Oh gosh, I can't get into an argument with this person. There's just no winning with them.” If it's that, you need to be good about making it clear that you're actually open to disagreement. Or open to, like, if it's they think you can't be reasoned with, you need to try and figure that out, you know, sort of like “Hey, I seem to have upset you. If you're worried that I'm not going to give your reasons like a fair hearing or something, please, let's slow this down. I want to talk more about this, and I'm ready to listen.” If you think it's that they think you just don't understand something, like, “Look, I know you know more about this than me, and I'm ready to be taught.” You know, I think sometimes bosses have to humble themselves to know that their staff know more about certain things than they do, and just like, “Look, I'm ready to slow down and listen. Explain it to me. You know, I'm here to learn,” kind of thing. You've got to figure out what that source of anger is. But again, what's going on there is there is this kind of value tension. They disagree with you about something and they think you either can't be reasoned with or you just aren't capable of understanding why they would think the thing they do. You need to rectify that, you need to figure out how you can get them more open to the idea that you can be reasoned with, that you can learn.Kate: I'm really interested in this, because I think it is very common wisdom that it's always the passive-aggressive person's problem, even this Psychology Today article sort of ends with like, well, spend as little time as possible with passive-aggressive people. And what I think is interesting is that you're arguing that there's some responsibility of the boss to maybe examine their own behavior in how they may be, not quite forcing people, but not giving them many other options to express their displeasure than these behaviors that other people don't like, but may be the only recourse they feel like they have.Andy: I think that's a really good point. I think really, really good people can easily devolve into passive-aggressive behavior when they get into a situation where things feel kind of hopeless. And so the overarching strategy that someone can deploy to start, you know, mitigating passive-aggressive behavior is to think about two things, the environment that the person's in that might be frustrating them, and what you, the boss, or what other coworkers might be doing that's making them feel that kind of hopelessness.Kate: Okay, so let's get into those a little bit deeper. So, the first one is the environment. Talk a little bit more about that.Andy: Well, there's this notion called psychological safety. If you've ever read some of the stuff on diversity and inclusion and about making diverse environments more inclusive environments, the thing that the social psychologists will tell you is if the work environment is psychologically safe, a diverse environment will be more inclusive as well. And what it means to be psychologically safe is that you create an environment where people feel comfortable expressing their values and opinions, where they feel like they're not going to be judged or looked down upon because of the perspective they bring to the table. I mean, if you think about that, that's also the sort of thing that might make people feel less of the anger and anxiety that can lead to passive-aggressive behavior. So just like psychological safety can move you from a diverse environment to an inclusive environment, it might also help mitigate some of these passive-aggressive behaviors because they probably are stemming from a similar source.Kate: Okay, so that's the external environment. But we've had some examples of bosses experiencing passive-aggressive behavior. What might they do about that?Andy: That's a really good question, and I think it's an important question because, I'm hazarding a guess here, but I suspect bosses are more likely to be on the receiving end of passive-aggressive behavior than between coworkers because bosses and managers tend to be in the positions of power. When bosses or managers are in the positions of power, there's an asymmetry there where the person is more likely to think, there's no reasoning with this person, you know, because they're the boss. They're more likely to say that this person's fixed in their ways, and there's no changing them, again, because they're the boss, they don't have to, right? So that feeling of powerlessness I think is what can lead to the anxiety and/or the anger.Kate: You did mention a fear of retaliation as a possible reason to not be communicative. So that certainly, that sort of power, your coworker doesn't really have that over you, but your boss does.Andy: Yeah, absolutely. So, I think it's really important for bosses to be thinking about not only the external environments, but to be taking a good hard look at themselves, and be really reflective in thinking, you know, what do I do on a daily basis that might make someone have the kinds of feelings that could lead to this kind of behavior? And I think there's a couple of practical things that can be done. One of those things that might make people resort to passive aggression is if they think there's just no persuading you. If they think there's just no persuading you on anything, then what is the point of reasoning with you, you're not going to hear me out, and if you're not going to hear me out, then I'm going to resort other ways to get done what I think ought to be done. So, what do you do? Well, you need to be creating a culture where people feel very comfortable pushing back. And they feel very much like you're actually taking their input into account. It's not like you hold a listening session, and then you're like, “Okay, I've listened, we're still going to do the thing.” It's got to be genuine and it's got to be authentic. And then the other thing, it might be they think you can't be reasoned with, or it might be something about your behavior. And they think you just can't be changed. Kind of like you can't teach an old dog new tricks. And so when they run up to something where they know your behavior is going to go, or take everyone in a certain direction because “that's just the way he or she is,” when they start feeling like your traits and behaviors that are unchangeable are taking them down a path that they don't want to go, that's when I think the passive-aggression is going to start to come out. And so I think it's important for leaders to be really self-aware about what those things are. What are those traits and behaviors that everybody thinks you're just set in your ways? And if you say, “Well, I have no idea what those are,” look at what people joke about with you. Right? What do people tease you about? Kate: If you haven't checked out our teasing episode, you should go do that.Andy: Yes, and actually, in that, one of the things that we talk about is the thing that sometimes the staff here will tease me about, is when Andy has an idea, right, like everybody wants to run. There's kind of a "Ha, ha, ha, Andy's an idea person, and it's scary when Andy gets an idea, because that's just going to be another thing on our plate," but undercurring that is like, "No, Andy, you've got an idea, and now it's going to be more work for us." Right? And, you know, in my own case, I need to be more intentional about things like what goes on inside someone's head when I say I have an idea. Right? And when I want to start talking about an idea, what is that doing to the people around me that I'm talking to? And if they thought that I would never be open to backing off on those or ratcheting things back, you know, that could engender a kind of hopelessness that could result in those kinds of behaviors, and I think bosses just need to be and leaders just need to be way more intentional about what are those things about your behavior that your staff doesn't like, and they would like to see you work on? And then they need to see that you're committed to working on it. So thank you, Dale, for sending in that letter and asking us, you know, what should bosses be doing to think about passive-aggressive behavior. And I think one strategy is trying to find what that hidden value tension is that the person might disagree with someone else about, figure out why they have difficulty talking about that issue, and then that opens up the way toward trying to deal these things. And then thinking about the culture more generally, thinking about creating places that are psychologically safe, and having leaders who really take self-improvement seriously, where they're showing people that they are authentically open to disagreement, and authentically committed to changing their behaviors in a way that make them even more of a team player. Thanks so much for joining us as we try to get ethics to work. I'm Andy Cullison.Kate: And I'm Kate Berry. If you have a question about business ethics you'd like answered on the podcast, email me at katherineberry@depauw.edu, and maybe we'll talk through your issue on the air.Andy: We hope you are staying safe and healthy in this crisis, we also hope you can take some of what we've discussed here and get it to work.Kate: If you want to learn more about what we talked about on the show today, check out our show notes page at getethicstowork. That's all one word, getethicstowork. Remember to subscribe to get new episodes of the show wherever you get your podcasts. But regardless of where you subscribe, please be sure to rate us on Apple Podcasts. It is the best place for us to meet new listeners. Getting Ethics to Work is hosted by the Janet Prindle Institute for Ethics at DePauw University. Our logo was created by SmallBox. Our music is by Blue Dot Sessions and can be found online at sessions.blue. Our show is made possible with the generous support of DePauw alumni, friends of the Prindle Institute, and you, the listeners. Thank you for your support. The views expressed here are the opinions of the individual speakers alone. They do not represent the position of DePauw University or the Prindle Institute for Ethics. ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download