Dealing with a Passive Aggressive Co-Worker

The question of how to deal with passive aggressive co-workers is one that I get more often than I would like. Here are a few thoughts on the subject.
Are They Really Being Passive Aggressive?
First, you have to make sure you’re identifying the problem accurately. The easy answer to this question may seem to be “yes”, but it can be easy to mistake the behaviors of people who are different than us as being hostile or adversarial. It’s worth stepping back for a moment and considering what the definition of “passive aggressive” is:

“A person with a passive-aggressive behavior pattern may appear to comply or act appropriately, but actually behaves negatively and passively resists.” (New York University)

In other words, someone behaving passive aggressively won’t directly express negative sentiments to you. Instead, they will act agreeable but will resist, or even sabotage, you behind your back.
It’s important to note, however, that not all difficult behavior is passive aggressive – you shouldn’t jump to conclusions. Remember, anyone can have a bad day, or have something stressful going on in their own life that you don’t know about, that can result in them acting out. We’re all been there. Take your time when assessing your situation – what you’re looking for prior to engaging in any problem solving is a clear pattern of passive aggressive behavior directed towards you over time. If you think you might be dealing with this problem, evaluate it objectively by creating brief documentation of the incidents. This doesn’t have to be fancy – the date it occurred and a sentence or two about what happened. This is not meant to show anyone (no, documentation doesn’t mean you go running right to HR!), but is to be used as your own personal reference of the incidents to establish a fuller picture of the situation before acting on it.
Complete this step and are sure you’ve got someone showing repeated instances of passive aggressive behavior? There are some thoughts on how to mitigate, or maybe even fix, the problem.
Be The Adult and Keep Your Cool
Yes, their actions are frustrating and childish. But no matter what, when you’re dealing with a passive aggressive co-worker, always keep in mind that you need to be the adult in the situation. The minute you lose your cool and engage in a back and forth is the minute that you position yourself as the bad guy. Remember, people like this are adept at being agreeable, and will use it to their every advantage. When interacting with them, just smile, say as little as possible, and act as though you believe their agreement with you is sincere, even if you’re sure they’re going to walk out of the room and do the opposite.
This, of course, can be easier said than done. It makes it easier if you always remember that the passive aggressive behavior likely has nothing to do you personally or things you’ve done to this individual. When people behave like this, it almost always has more to do with something that is going on with them than it does the person they are targeting. Don’t ignore or suppress the feelings that you have about it – just make sure to put them in their proper context. It’s not you or anything that you’re doing wrong. It’s them.
Document, Document, Document (But Keep Communication In Person!)
While many think of documentation as something you only do when you’re looking to get HR involved, documenting negative behavior should be standard practice for all, regardless of if you are dealing with people who work for you, your co-workers, or even the people you report to. That way, if you ever need to escalate an issue and go to HR down the road (or if the people you’re dealing with drag HR into it!), you will have all of the dates and examples readily at hand. Documentation doesn’t need to be fancy – just write yourself an email about what happened so you have a time/date on it and save it in a safe place. Make the email from your personal account to your personal account if you’re worried about an IT person rummaging through the system and getting access to it.
However, don’t fall into the “doing everything in writing” trap to create documentation. Communicating with the person causing problems purely via email can only exacerbate the situation, as we can’t infer tone or intentions in writing. You also may have a hard time defending yourself if the email is shown to others, as they can infer any tone they want. Keep email for things like quick updates to groups, confirmation of responsibilities, or scheduling meetings. All other communication should take place in person. Written documentation that you make along the way detailing things that happen in the hallway or the office kitchen or in meetings is just as valid, even if the original incident didn’t occur in writing.
Understand Their Relationship Tree…And Build Your Own Network
One of the most common mistakes people make when dealing with human problems in the workplace is narrowing their scope to the person who they perceive as being the cause of those problems. The harm they could be causing may go far beyond pissing you off – it could be hurting your reputation and your career. Instead of narrowing the scope when examining the problem, you have to broaden it. Relationships with co-workers don’t exist in a vacuum and, particularly when co-workers behavior negatively towards you, and understanding of their relationships in the office is critical to minimizing the damage it could potentially cause. Is this person influential in your office? Who are their friends? Who are their enemies? If they are saying negative things about you behind your back, who’s going to hear them? And, of those people who hear them, who’s going to believe them? Understanding the lay of the land is critical to proactive problem solving.
Let’s look at an example. Say this person is friends with your boss and you know that your boss is influenced by things they say. That presents a very different problem than if, all other things being equal, the opposite were true (if your boss did not find this co-worker at all credible). Or if you know that, generally speaking, your primary team of co-workers really likes this person that presents a much different problem than if that person is generally perceived to be a passive aggressive annoyance by all.
Identifying the relationships and perceptions involved will help you figure out who your enemies and allies are in this equation, and will be critical if you hope for the problem to be ultimately solved rather than simply mitigated.
Make Them Accountable…In Front of Others
Using the information from the previous step, you can construct situations that will make the behavior more overt and obvious to those you work with.Don’t do this in a mean “gotcha” way, but rather in a way that reinforces positive behavior and discourages negative behavior.
Since passive aggressive behavior is characterized by agreement to your face and pushback behind your back, you have to make sure there are other witnesses to the behavior, and clear accountability for it. For example, say you are in a meeting about a project you are managing with a group that includes your passive-aggressive problem. Make sure that, during the meeting, you get them to agree to completing specific next steps verbally in front of others. Don’t single them out – make sure others in the room go through the same process (that’s just good project management!) – but specifically, you’re focusing on ensuring your problem co-worker gives you a verbal yes. If they seem at all hesitant about the “yes”, that’s an opportunity for you to say something like “you seem hesitant…is there anything I can do to move this along?” Again, that puts the accountability back on them to say “yes, here’s what I need” or “no, I’ll make sure it gets done.” After the meeting adjourns, follow-up to the team in writing regarding next steps and to do’s, with clear assignments regarding who will complete what, and when it will get completed by.
It’s critical that you do this in a way that doesn’t single this individual out – simply hold them accountable to the same standards that you would any other. Just like you shouldn’t take this personally, this shouldn’t be a personal attack against them. Your one and only goal is to mitigate or change their negative behavior.
Rehab Them (If You Can!)
Is there hope of changing a passive-aggressive co-worker? The answer, as usual, is “it depends.” There two major reasons why a person exhibits passive aggressive behavior – either they want control in a situation they don’t have it in, or they are trying to avoid conflict. If they are the latter, you can help them along over time by showing them that conflict is OK, and is a critical part of a healthy and productive team. Set up safe environments for them to disagree with you and show them consistently that the sky will not fall.
Co-workers that are trying to gain control in situations they don’t have it are a different problem. One solution can be finding a project for them to own – give them something to control that will hopefully distract them from the things they don’t have control over. For this to work, you have to put aside any hard feelings you have and give the person your full support – either they will eventually embrace it and the toxic passive aggressive behavior will subside, or they won’t. If they don’t change, the best you can hope to do is isolate it and mitigate it by putting up boundaries and holding them accountable to their word. That is, of course, unless you manage them directly. In that case, you may want to show them the door before the poison the rest of your team.

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