6 Types Of Problem Coworkers That Will Make Your Job A Nightmare If You Let Them
Don't let them get the best of you.
Mizuno K | Canva Almost everyone has experienced a problem co-worker who became a nightmare at work or elsewhere. They’re a major drain on your energy, productivity, and happiness.
Before a toxic relationship can be neutralized, you must intimately understand what’s making it a problem in the first place. The situation develops when one person’s needs are no longer met, or someone interferes with the ability to maintain a healthy and productive relationship.
Recognizing and understanding the dynamic enables you to develop effective strategies to thwart future bad interactions.
Here are 6 types of problem coworkers that will make your job a nightmare if you let them:
1. The passive-aggressive problem person
This type of behavior takes many forms in the workplace, from the manager who gives you the cold shoulder to the colleague who ccs e-mails to your boss.
One of the most common forms of passive aggression is a drastic reduction of effort. Passive aggressive types have great difficulty receiving feedback, which can lead them to leave work early or not work as hard. Passive aggression is counterproductive in the workplace, where opinions and feelings need to be discussed for progress to continue.
When you find someone behaving passive-aggressively toward you, you must take it upon yourself to communicate the problem. Passive-aggressive types typically are trying to avoid the issue at hand. If you can’t bring yourself to open up a line of communication, you may find yourself joining in the mind games.
An article in the Journal of Managerial Psychology explained how passive-aggressive types tend to be sensitive and avoid conflict. When you do bring something up, make sure to do so as constructively and harmoniously as possible.
2. The untrustworthy problem person
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You’re inevitably going to make mistakes at work. Some people get so fixated on other people’s mistakes they believe they don’t make mistakes themselves. You’ll find these people hold grudges, are constantly afraid other people will do them harm, and may even begin nudging you out of important projects.
If you’re not careful, this can stifle upward career movement by removing important growth opportunities.
The frustrating thing about this type of relationship is that one mistake can lose hundreds of “trust points,” but hundreds of perfect actions can restore one trust point.
To win back their trust, you must pay extra close attention to detail, and you’re not frazzled by them constantly looking for mistakes, as Strategy & Leadership Journal suggested. You have to use every ounce of patience while you dig yourself out of your subjective hole.
3. The one-sided problem person
Relationships are supposed to be mutually beneficial, with a natural give-and-take. In the workplace, this applies to relationships with people who report to you (they should be getting things done for you, and you should be teaching them) and with people you report to (you should be learning from them but also contributing).
These relationships grow toxic when one person begins to give a disproportionate amount or only wants to take it. It could be a manager who has to guide an employee through every excruciating detail or a colleague who finds herself doing all the work.
If possible, the best thing to do with this type is to stop giving. Unfortunately, this isn’t always possible. When it isn’t, you must have a frank conversation with the other party to recalibrate the relationship.
4. The idealistic problem person
Idealistic relationships are those where we begin to hold people in too high a regard.
When you think your colleague walks on water, the relationship becomes toxic because you don’t have the boundaries you need in a healthy working relationship. For instance, you might overlook a mistake that needs attention or do work that violates your moral compass because you assume your colleague is in the right, as supported by research in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships.
This loss of boundaries is exceptionally harmful to you, and you have the power to set the relationship straight. No matter how close you may be with someone or how great you think their work may be, you need to remain objective.
If you’re the one people are idealizing, you need to speak up and insist they treat you like everyone else.
5. The punitive problem person
Punitive relationships involve one person punishing the other for behavior that doesn’t align directly with their expectations.
Relationship coach Susan Allen described how the punitive type develops, "Punitive educational systems lead to punitive parents and authoritarian government leadership while respect for individuality has been proven to create self-respect, respect for others, and democracy."
The primary issue with punitive types is their instinct is to punish without adequate communication, feedback, and understanding. This belittling approach creates conflict and bad feelings.
To survive a punitive type, you must choose your battles wisely. Your voice won’t be heard if you dive right into every conflict. They’ll label you as someone who is too sensitive.
6. The brutally honest problem person
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These types get so caught up in looking good that they lose track of what’s fact and fiction. Then, the lies pile up until they’re the foundation of the relationship. People who won’t give you straight answers don’t deserve your trust. After all, if they’re willing to lie to you, how can you ever really depend on them?
When you remove trust from any relationship, you don’t have a relationship at all. Building a relationship on lies is no different than building a house on a pile of sand. The best thing you can do is to count your losses and move on.
Here's how to protect yourself from a problem co-worker.
Toxic people drive you crazy because their behavior is so irrational. Make no mistake about it—their behavior truly goes against reason, so why do you allow yourself to respond to them emotionally and get sucked into the mix?
The ability to manage your emotions and remain calm under pressure directly links to your performance. The more irrational and off-base someone is, the easier it should be for you to remove yourself from their traps.
Quit trying to beat them at their own game.
Distance yourself from them emotionally, and approach your interactions like they’re a science project (or you’re their shrink if you prefer that analogy). You don’t need to respond to the emotional chaos—only the facts.
Maintaining an emotional distance requires awareness. You can’t stop someone from pushing your buttons if you don’t recognize when it’s happening. Sometimes, you’ll find yourself in situations where you must regroup and choose the best way forward. This is fine, and you shouldn’t be afraid to buy yourself some time to do so.
Most people feel that they have no way to control the chaos because they work or live with someone. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Once you’ve identified a toxic person, you’ll find their behavior more predictable and easier to understand. This will equip you to think rationally about when and where you must put up with them and when and where you don’t.
You can establish boundaries, but you’ll have to do so consciously and proactively. If you let things happen naturally, you will be constantly embroiled in difficult conversations. You can control much of the chaos if you set boundaries and decide when and where you’ll engage a difficult person. The only trick is to stick to your guns and keep boundaries in place when the person tries to cross them, which they will.
Bringing it all together
There are many different types of toxic relationships in the workplace. When you find yourself embroiled in one, it’s worth the effort to evaluate things carefully and develop a course of action to save your sanity and improve your career.
Dr. Travis Bradberry is the award-winning coauthor of the #1 bestselling book Emotional Intelligence 2.0 and the cofounder of TalentSmart, the world’s leading provider of emotional intelligence tests and training, serving more than 75% of Fortune 500 companies.
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