Someone badmouthing your work or reputation. Someone competing with you in order to gain status or prominence over you. Someone purposely withholding information you need to do work. Someone intentionally giving you false information about a task you're doing so you miss a deadline.
Examples of how an employee can use social undermining in the work environment are behaviors that are used to delay the work of co-workers, to make them look bad or slow them down, competing with co-workers to gain status and recognition and giving co-workers incorrect or even misleading information about a particular ...
Actions such as gossiping, bullying, and inappropriate tone are included in disrespectful behavior from employees in the workplace. Disrespect at work may arise in any work setting. Individual irritation and system failures can mostly play a role in disrespectful behavior.
Disrespect in the Workplace Assumes Many “Faces”
Disrespect takes many forms, with overt actions including: Interrupting someone before they are done speaking. Making rude, snide or belittling comments. Seizing control of a situation or project by means of intimidation.
Someone may be undermining you if they: Purposefully share mistakes you've made with others. Interrupt you and contradict what you're saying in a way that makes others negatively question your words or ideas. Take action to lessen the importance of your achievements or how you realized4 your accomplishments.
It can come as a shock if a colleague starts undermining you. It can be subtle at first: they may highlight your mistakes or make a joke at your expense. They might downplay your achievements or give you a backhanded compliment. They might laugh it off as friendly banter, but there's a barb that smarts.
Establish boundaries
Setting limits is the first step in managing a toxic coworker and ensuring their behavior doesn't affect your mood or work performance. Try to distance yourself from your colleague when they engage in conduct like gossiping, micromanaging and harassment.
Toxic coworkers are often unsatisfied with their own personal performance, position, pay, or experience in the workforce and they've allowed that dissatisfaction to come to such a boiling point that they become detractors within the culture, says Robert H.
Undermining you is their way to bring you down so they can go up. Bringing people down is a (sick) way for some to build themselves up. A very sick way. Instead of working on themselves and building alliances of equally cool people, they try to drag you down to make themselves feel better.
There are a number of reasons why people might undermined others at work. In some cases, they may feel like they are not being given the respect they deserve, and so they resort to undermining as a way of gaining control or attention. Alternatively, they may simply enjoy seeing others fail or be unhappy.
Describe the situation, in detail, explaining what the problem is, and why. Make sure you have evidence to back this up. Then offer a solution - what you want them to do, and then the consequences: what will happen if they do - and don't do - as you ask."
Ask why they're acting like the boss.
But you don't want to come off like a crybaby. So posing a basic question to them is a good start: Is there a reason you're acting like the boss? “Just ask the question,” said Marcus. “Maybe they don't even know they're doing it.”
Another sign that someone may be emotionally abusive is if they invalidate you. Some examples of invalidation include: Undermining, dismissing, or distorting your perceptions or your reality. Refusing to accept your feelings by trying to define how you should feel.
People say things like, “I'm so disorganized,” or “I'm a mess,” or “I'm overwhelmed.” All of these statements make one appear out of control, incompetent and/or not very reliable. Undermining statements like the ones above are a form of negative self-talk.
Synonym Chooser
Some common synonyms of undermine are cripple, debilitate, disable, enfeeble, sap, and weaken. While all these words mean "to lose or cause to lose strength or vigor," undermine and sap suggest a weakening by something working surreptitiously and insidiously.
Unprofessional behaviours include: • bullying or intimidation. • sexual harassment. • threats of violence, revenge or malicious legal proceedings. • racial, ethnic or sexist slurs.
For example, suppose an employee consistently goes above and beyond their job duties but is never acknowledged or rewarded for their efforts. In that case, they may become disheartened and feel their work doesn't matter. Increased stress: Feeling undervalued can lead to increased stress levels for employees.
This happens when someone ignores you or doesn't respond to your emails, texts, or voicemails. You might think it's because they don't care about you, but it could just mean they're busy. Or maybe they're simply overwhelmed. People at work tend to be ignored if others don't think they can't provide value to them.