We’ve all had to deal with problematic bosses or coworkers at some point in our career journeys. But the issue is how can you deal with them in a productive way, so everyone still feels comfortable in the workplace and gets their work done.

Tessa West is a Professor of Psychology at New York University and a leading expert in the science of interpersonal communication. Her research focuses on questions such as: How can we improve communication across cultural and national divides, and what hurdles do we need to overcome to make hybrid communication work? She is also the author of “Jerks at Work” which focuses on coping with toxic colleagues.

Tessa joins Greg to talk about how toxicity can affect productivity in an office environment, maybe having some empathy for the jerks, credit stealing, and finding allies within the workplace.

Three rules to consider before quitting your job

I have a couple rules. One is, the person who's creating these problems, you know, or the person who's in charge of the person creating these problems, are they motivated to change? Are they motivated to fix it? So, if the motivation isn't there, you're not going to get anywhere. And then the second piece of that is, assuming they're not motivated, how much flexibility do you have at all to shift over to a new team? To a new manager? If you're stuck in this kind of power dynamic, they are not motivated to change and these behaviors are deal-breakers, it's just like any relationship—you don't really have much of a choice but to exit. But I would definitely try, you know, having some of those conflict conversations. Don't kind of jump out right away because you think the grass is greener. You know, we're seeing with the great resignation, a lot of people are surprisingly wishing they had their old job back because we have very little evidence that the new place we're going to is any better. So, I'd add the kind of last piece of advice is, when you're thinking about leaving and you know where you're going to go next, you have to put them through the same kind of gauntlet that you put your old job through to make sure that those same problems, or even worse problems you've never even heard of, don't exist. And we don't interrogate new jobs in the same way that we interrogate our existing jobs. We sort of always assume it's going to be better. But you have to really interrogate them before you make that step, because if you're not careful, you're just going to have a career of a whole bunch of horizontal moves. And it's going to be very hard to climb up.

What “toxic” really means

We use the word "toxic" a lot. We throw it around. And everyone says it, but no one knows what it means. And I think it's very much in the eye of the beholder. One person's toxic coworker, or toxic boss, is another person's someone with leadership potential who knows how to get ahead here.

How smart jerks can turn your good traits into bad

So, one thing that bosses do is they try to show as much trust in teams as possible. So, there's this whole movement out there to not micromanage, to trust people. We use this kind of vague language that implies that, if we're overseeing them too much, if we're communicating with them too much, they're going to burn out, they're going to get irritated, they want autonomy, you know, all that kind of good stuff. But smart jerks at work will take advantage of cultures that are trying to sort of create that level of autonomy by sneaking in and actually taking over the reins and communicating for their boss, often, for people who are not one step beneath the boss but two steps beneath them.

Recommended Resources:

• Diederik Stapel

Guest Profile:

• Faculty Profile at New York University
• Professional Profile at BrightSight Speakers
• Tessa West Website
• Tessa West on LinkedIn
• Tessa West on Twitter

Her Work:

• Tessa West on Google Scholar
• Tessa West on Substack
• The West Interpersonal Perception Lab
• Jerks at Work: Toxic Coworkers and What to Do About Them