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Gaslighting White Paper
Month: January 2022
While the word “gaslighting” gets thrown around quite a bit in the workplace these days, it’s a much more severe and complex problem than simply having a bad boss. Gaslighters are manipulative, psychologically abusive saboteurs who may have a mental illness. If you think your manager might be gaslighting you at work, ask yourself these four questions.
- Does your manager lie?
A signature characteristic of a gaslighter is a refusal to admit they are wrong. If your manager doubles down when you dispute their account of a conversation or an event, even when you know you are right, they might be a gaslighter. Gaslighters are such effective liars that they make their victims question their memories and, ultimately, their sanity.
- Does your manager talk bad about you behind your back?
Victims of gaslighting at work often notice that their performance has a negative reputation without merit. While gaslighters might seem friendly and supportive face-to-face, they often speak poorly of their victims to colleagues and superiors.
- Have inexplicable things been happening at work?
Do things disappear and then reappear from your workspace? Have documents or files gone missing from your computer? Have you noticed strange logins to your accounts?
These are real examples of gaslighting behavior that employees have experienced.
Gaslighters intentionally try to control their victims by making them feel psychologically unstable.
- Do you think your manager ultimately wants you to succeed?
The most important thing to ask yourself to determine if your boss is a gaslighter is whether or not they want you to succeed. A tough manager who holds a high bar and pushes you to do better is not a gaslighter. Gaslighters are malicious and do not ultimately want to see an employee succeed. On the contrary, they aim to sabotage their victims’ careers.
If you think your manager is a gaslighter after reflecting on these four questions, it’s time to take action. First off, reground yourself, as gaslighters corrode their victims’ confidence. Recognize if this has happened to you, discuss it with your therapist or trusted friend, and implement a self-care plan. Next, start documenting every interaction with your manager. Be sure to use a personal device that your manager can’t access. Finally, take your evidence to HR.
The only way to get out of a professional relationship with a gaslighter is to leave or have them removed. If the organization is unwilling to take action on your complaint, you may, unfortunately, have to remove yourself from the abusive situation and seek employment elsewhere.
Book a consultation with us now! Please do not hesitate to contact us with any questions. We would love to hear from you. Email at [email protected].
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XcelMil, LLC is a certified Minority-Woman and Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business specializing in Executive Management Consulting and Leadership Development Training.
Imagine being reprimanded at work for not attending a meeting you didn’t have on your calendar. Or, your manager insists that they emailed you regarding a critical deadline, but you have no record of receiving the email. These scenarios are examples of what could occur when one is in a professional relationship with a psychologically abusive “gaslighter.”
What is gaslighting?
Gaslighting is a psychological and social phenomenon that plays out in relationships with unequal power dynamics. It’s a type of manipulation where one person, typically a male, makes a victim feel irrational, crazy, and uncertain about their very grasp on reality. Gaslighting is rooted in gender-based stereotypes and structural and institutional inequalities.
Victims of gaslighting are most often women for a few reasons. First, there is a long-standing cultural tradition of labeling women as irrational, crazy, and emotionally unstable. Secondly, women have not historically had enough political, financial, and cultural resources to gaslight men. Power inequity is a fundamental condition for gaslighting.
While men commonly perpetrate gaslighting against women, men can also be victims of gaslighting. Still, gendered stereotypes–masculine as rational and feminine as irrational–play a significant role. In male-to-male or female-to-male gaslighting, the gaslighter uses gender-based strategies to feminize the victim, portraying them as irrational or crazy.
Like in intimate personal relationships, victims of gaslighting in institutional relationships–like at work–cannot easily dismiss gaslighting transgressions. In particular, the power dynamic between boss and employee makes it extremely difficult for the victim to extricate themselves from the abusive situation.
How it plays out at work
Just like in other relationships, gaslighting at work occurs when one person manipulates another into questioning their sanity. The perpetrator could be a manager, a colleague, or even a client or customer. When someone is “gaslit” at work, they are made to feel like they are crazy and could even start believing it. For example, a manager could insist that an employee didn’t complete an assignment that the employee knows they did. In such a scenario, the gaslighter is so unwaveringly adamant that the victim starts to question their memory of events.
The fundamental difference between a manager who holds high expectations, or even a micro-manager, is that they have malicious intent. A gaslighting manager does not ultimately want to see an employee succeed. In direct contrast, they aim to sabotage their victim. Gaslighters will go so far as to manipulate the environment and circumstances–delete files, cancel meetings, or file false claims–to make their victim question their sense of reality. As such, no matter how hard an employee works or to what lengths they go to please the gaslighter, their efforts will always be in vain.
The only way to escape a gaslighting relationship at work is to identify it and then remove oneself from the situation, either by leaving the position or exposing the gaslighter. To learn more about recognizing and addressing gaslighting, check out our next post.
Book a consultation with us now! Please do not hesitate to contact us with any questions. We would love to hear from you. Email at [email protected].
Click here https://xcelmil.com/xcelmil-coaching-and-consulting-services/ to learn more about our services.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/GraticMelody
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melodygraticconsulting/
XcelMil, LLC is a certified Minority-Woman and Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business specializing in Executive Management Consulting and Leadership Development Training.
