How to Deal With dangerous Coworkers
How to Deal With dangerous Coworkers Who Threaten Your Professional Reputation
Around 95% of interpersonal problems at work can be chalked up to personality clashes. Sometimes there’s a case of reasonable people under too much stress. Annoying at worst, these conflicts are usually fixed by a heart to heart, or easily tolerated.
But the last 5% of dangerous coworkers have real potential to damage your job, or even career, if you mishandle them. Just as bad would be not trying to handle them at all. These people don’t change. Not even if they hurt their own professional standing along with their targets’.
Ignoring these people doesn’t make them go away. Doing nothing about their behaviour allows them to sow more damage and make the problem worse. The work environment becomes toxic. When you’re forced to work with one of the 5%, your job satisfaction and morale decreases. Mental health, or even physical health, problems increase.
Unfortunately, “quit your job” isn’t necessarily a simple, possible, or desirable solution. Neither is “pretend they don’t exist.” Instead, once you recognise these dangerous people, apply coping strategies to minimise the impact on your job and career.
Most of these dangerous people come in three types: narcissists, emotional vampires, and drama llamas. Others will be a combination of two or all.
Narcissists tend to be arrogant, manipulative, and entitled, with an inflated ego. They lack empathy and feel a strong need to be admired by everyone around them. Narcissists covet power and control.
Emotional vampires feed on the energy of the people around them. They’re negative and demanding. Emotional vampires leave you feeling drained, exhausted, depressed, anxious, and/or insecure. Emotional vampires are less interested in power or control than narcissists. They don’t have the same grandiose view of themselves.
Drama llamas love drama, conflict, and chaos. They crave the spotlight. Drama llamas disrupt the workplace with unnecessary problems. If they haven’t started the drama, they’re making it worse.
You shouldn’t diagnose or label specific people at work. And not everyone who displays these traits will be a narcissist, emotional vampire, or drama llama. But, if you spot certain characteristics or behaviour patterns when you interact with a coworker, it might be time to act. Protect yourself and your team.
How to recognise a narcissist
Narcissists use people as sources of attention, admiration, and praise. They believe they deserve special privileges because they’re superior to everyone else. They’re scared of being seen as weak or inferior.
Signs to watch out for:
Boasting about their accomplishments and downplaying the achievements and contributions of others
One-upping people to avoid feeling outdone
Taking credit for the work of others
Ignoring or undermining colleagues
Becoming defensive and angry when challenged or criticized (even if the negative feedback is minor)
Trying to force their ideas and solutions while dismissing alternatives
Blaming other people for their mistakes and not taking responsibility for their actions
Belittling, demeaning, and over criticizing others
A narcissist will likely target you if you compete for a promotion or high-status project, or if you disagree with the narcissist. Or if the narcissist decides that you’re a threat to their power and status.
Narcissists can endanger your career in several ways. They might sabotage your work by excluding you from projects, meetings, or informal but important conversations. They might steal your ideas without giving you credit. Narcissists won’t hesitate to spread lies and rumours if it benefits them. They might try to control your time and resources, so you help them succeed instead of completing your own work.
Many narcissists send other people to do their bidding. The weaponized coworkers are called “flying monkeys”—a term which comes from The Wizard of Oz, in which the Wicked Witch of the West uses winged monkeys to harm Dorothy. These flying monkeys can do anything from gathering information for the narcissist to making excuses for the narcissist’s actions. Recruited coworkers may gaslight you, spread rumours and lies, or isolate you. Flying monkeys don’t always know they’re flying monkeys. They believe they’re doing the right thing.
How to recognise an emotional vampire
Emotional vampires need constant attention, but not for the same reasons as narcissists do. Emotional vampires don’t have the same arrogance or sense of entitlement. Instead, they’re often emotionally unstable with low self-esteem. They need excessive validation and support. Emotional vampires seem to always be in a crisis as a perpetual victim.
Signs to watch out for:
Always focusing on their own needs instead of the needs of anyone else
Blaming everyone and everything except themselves for all their problems
Complaining, criticizing, or overreacting
Making public displays to grab attention
Triggering emotional reactions from other people for the sake of the reaction itself, whether negative or positive
Acting like a martyr
Leaving people emotionally exhausted, insecure, anxious, or depressed
Guilt tripping
An emotional vampire will likely target you if you’re kind and compassionate. They’ll take advantage of your kind heart and listening ear.
Emotional vampires can harm your career in a few ways. They destroy your ability to concentrate on your responsibilities by dumping their emotional baggage onto you. They might monopolize your time with their frustrations, problems, and never-ending complaints. Constant negativity and stress wreck your emotional well-being, impacting your job performance.
Getting too close to an emotional vampire hurts your reputation. Other coworkers will associate you with the negativity, even if you don’t engage in the same behaviour. The emotional vampire can easily turn on you and blame you for their latest crisis or problem. Even if it’s clearly an unfair accusation.
Not all emotional vampires deliberately try to harm your career. But the consequences of their behaviour are real.
How to recognise a drama llama
Drama llamas are, well, drama addicts. If they’re not in the centre of conflict, dispute, or tension, they’re egging on everyone involved. They love causing unnecessary stress and tension. A drama llama will exaggerate or overreact to even momentary or trivial disagreements to feel excitement or hog attention.
Some drama llamas suffer from histrionic personality disorder; people with this condition feel unappreciated or uncomfortable if they're not the centre of attention, and exaggerate their emotions even to the point of embarrassing themselves or others around them.
Signs to watch out for:
Often causing or contributing to disputes with coworkers, supervisors, or subordinates
Exaggerating their reactions or others’ reactions, words, or responses to situations and events
Gossiping or spreading rumours to divide coworkers and create tension
Making mountains out of molehills
Being easily offended, upset, or angered
Taking things too personally and being over sensitive to criticism or feedback
Having a history of being unpredictable
Creating drama purposely to make themselves the centre of attention
A drama llama will likely target you if they developed a grudge against you, whether for real or imaginary reasons. Their “justification” for their negative feelings can be extremely petty or tenuous. They might become jealous of attention you’ve earned through your accomplishments or skills. They’ll target you because they believe you’ll be easy to rope into drama for their entertainment. You could be targeted randomly.
A drama llama can hurt your career in several ways. All human brains are wired to enjoy drama to an extent. But most people don’t like being part of it, and don’t want to deal with it at work. The majority of your coworkers just want to get on with their work and have a smooth day. If the drama llamas pull you into their unnecessary conflicts too often, you might be partially blamed. Even if someone knows you’re innocent, their subconscious creates a negative association. Managers, coworkers, and clients might struggle to take you seriously.
In extreme cases drama llamas can cause you to lose your job. Getting involved with a drama llama can lead to disciplinary action or termination. Your job performance plummets because the drama llama disrupts your focus and steals valuable time from your duties. They also alienate you from your team. Other coworkers start to mistrust you, and because they don’t want to become embroiled in unnecessary conflict and disputes, they don’t communicate with you. Drama llamas prevent employees from working together effectively. Failed projects or delays can cause one or more (even all) team members to lose their jobs.
Strategies to handle dangerous coworkers
If a narcissist, emotional vampire, or drama llama targets you, you need to act ASAP. But you need to be careful. Impulsive but common reactions backfire.
Don’t confront them with accusations or labels. The terms narcissist, emotional vampire, and drama llama are for your own private use—to help you categorise and recognise the issue. Never call the dangerous person any of these terms either to their face or in front of your coworkers. You can discuss these terms with a therapist or CBT career coach to help explain your situation.
Don’t fire off a long list of their sins. This only escalates the behaviour and encourages them to retaliate against you. It only makes them more aggressive.
You also shouldn’t react aggressively. Doing so creates a power struggle, which will only hurt you more.
Instead try one or more of the following strategies to handle dangerous coworkers.
Grey Rocking
The grey rock method can be summed up in two words.
Be boring.
You’re going to make yourself the emotional and social equivalent to a boulder. No matter what, you’re not going to take the bait of a dangerous person. Limit information and never show any emotion. Let them make snide backhanded comments, try to ignite arguments, or tell you lies all they want—only if no one else is in ear shot. They’ll get nothing back. Zero emotions, no body language. Say nothing.
The dangerous person will likely get fed up with getting no “fuel” from you; once they get bored of you, they’ll leave you alone.
You can apply the grey rock method in a few ways:
Limit personal information. Give monotone neutral responses. Tell them nothing about your personal life outside of work. For example, the dangerous person asks you “how was your weekend?” You respond with something like, “good, thanks.” And that’s all. If they push for more, continue to repeat “It was good, thanks.” Or variations thereof.
Limit your interactions with them. Avoid being alone with them as much as possible. Only talk to them when necessary. When you must discuss something with them, keep things short. And stick to the project or task at hand. If the dangerous person tries to veer off subject, gently but firmly steer them back.
Use simple facts if you need to discuss something about a project or in a team meeting. Never reveal how you feel about an event at work, or your responsibilities. Don’t ponder the why or how something happened or whose “fault” it is if mistakes were made. If something went wrong, just report the facts, without a hypothesis of the cause.
Keep your emotions in control. Stay calm and composed. Do not let their behaviour affect your emotions. Take nothing personally. Their behaviour isn’t really about you anyway.
Stay consistent.
The grey rock method is not a complete solution. It protects you and your emotions. It helps you stay professional. The grey rock method won’t work with some individuals.
It’s especially helpful for dealing with a narcissist. In fact, grey rocking was specifically designed to handle narcissistic people with whom you can’t cut all contact with.
You can grey rock an emotional vampire, but first you may need to outline your expectations of them and what behaviour you’ll accept or not accept.
Finally, always be polite and courteous to the dangerous person.
Setting Boundaries
Setting a boundary is not being rude. It is not a punishment for “bad behaviour”. It is not about telling other people what to do or how they “should” behave.
Boundaries define the behaviours which are acceptable in interactions with you vs. unacceptable behaviour you won’t tolerate. You’re outlining how you will respond if someone treats you in a way you find unacceptable.
Boundaries are about and for yourself. You set boundaries because people who disrespect you, try to tear you down, or hurt you are not worth your time or energy. You have zero reasons to apologise for reasonable boundaries which you’ve clearly communicated. Your well-being is more important than the feelings of a narcissist, emotional vampire, or drama llama who threatens your job or career.
Reasonable people respect reasonable boundaries. All humans are flawed; a reasonable person might accidentally violate a boundary of yours. They’ll apologise. You don’t necessarily need to be harsh or inflexible with a reasonable person who makes a genuine mistake. You do need to be inflexible with a narcissist, emotional vampire, or drama llama.
How to set a boundary:
Figure out what you want or need to stay safe, happy, and comfortable. This might include: how much time and energy you’ll spend on a relationship or topic, how you want other people to speak to you, or what subjects you refuse to discuss.
Communicate your boundary. Be clear, direct, and assertive, using a firm respectful tone. Use “I” statements. Do not make accusations or bring up specific incidents in the past.
Explain what you’ll do if your boundary is broken. This might include: walking away, ending the conversation, or reporting the incident to HR.
It is your responsibility to uphold your boundaries. Any time a boundary is broken by one of these dangerous people, you must enforce it.
A therapist or CBT career coach can help you articulate your boundary and decide the best way to respond to violations. They can also help you practice enforcing your boundaries.
Using “I” statements
Sentences that focus on your feelings and needs, instead of blaming or pointing fingers, are called “I” statements. You’re using language that shows you’re taking responsibility for what you feel and think. Which helps you express your needs clearly, and reduce the chance of the dangerous person becoming defensive.
“I” statements also help you build empathy and understanding with your other coworkers. They’ll be less likely to think you’re part of the problems the dangerous person creates. The rest of your team will be more likely to defend you.
Narcissists, emotional vampires, and drama llamas suffer from their issues. They aren’t always malicious. Most of their behaviour is selfish more than anything else. “I” statements make it more likely they’ll understand what you want or don’t want from them. Using language that focuses on yourself de-escalates the situation.
Here’s an example of using “I” statements:
Instead of saying, “You always interrupt me in meetings. It’s really annoying.”
Say, “I feel disrespected when you interrupt me during meetings. I would appreciate it if you could let me finish speaking before you respond.”
Seeking support
Your friends, family, and colleagues can help you. In extreme cases, a therapist or CBT career coach can provide extra support. Be careful not to vent or complain about the dangerous person excessively to friends and family. It’s okay to share negative feelings, but no one wants to wallow in misery. The kinds of support your personal connections can give you differ from what your colleagues can provide.
If you do seek support there are a few things to keep in mind:
Be discreet. Don’t discuss your situation with too many people. Only choose people you trust. You don’t want the issue to get twisted into gossip or rumours.
Outline your goals, and give details on what you want. They’ll be more likely to help you if they know exactly how to support you.
Be honest. Explain what happened and your feelings without blame or accusations. If you’ve made mistakes, admit it. You can get advice about how to fix them.
Tell people you appreciate their support. Tell them how you implemented their advice to solve the problem. Let them know their support was effective.
If you feel unsafe go to HR or your manager. HR exists to protect the company, which often means protecting you. Part of HR’s purpose is to help you navigate major concerns. Your manager has more authority to sort out conflicts. Supervisors can discipline the dangerous person if necessary.
Your coworkers can give you suggestions, technical support, or help you with aspects of your work. They can make you feel valued by spending breaks, going to lunch, or taking coffee breaks with you. Your colleagues can help you report the dangerous person, give you guidance, or go with you for moral support. They can provide witness statements to help you document the situation for HR.
A therapist or CBT career coach will discuss your feelings without judgment. They can teach you techniques to manage stress as a temporary boost to your well-being while you deal with the dangerous person at work. They teach you how to communicate assertively and clearly. A therapist or CBT coach can help you recognise the toxic dynamics of narcissists, emotional vampires, and drama llamas. Therapists and CBT career coaches can’t diagnose a specific individual, but they understand how to counteract the harm these dangerous people can wreak.
Documenting incidents
HR and your manager can only help you if they understand what’s going on. Start documenting incidents with dangerous people at work ASAP. You need a detailed record of the situation so HR and your manager can take the right action. Continue documenting new incidents immediately as they occur.
How to document past and present incidents:
Save original copies of texts, emails, social media, work-related chat groups etc. Screenshots are better than printouts.
Keep a detailed log of behaviours and incidents. Note down dates, times, and describe what happened. Include relevant details such as names, supporting evidence, and context. Don’t include personal opinions, whether yours or others’. Write in a neutral tone and only describe facts. Use a professional formal format like a memo or report. Write an introduction, body, and conclusion. Proofread your document for grammar, spelling, or punctuation errors. Headings and bullet points make your document easy to read and understand.
Get written statements from witnesses on what they saw and heard. Memories fade, so get them quickly.
Address your report to the right person. Decide whether you need to send it to your supervisor, HR, or both. Include the contact information of the recipient.
You’re not trying to get revenge or get the dangerous person in trouble.
It’s important to defend yourself against dangerous people at work
It’s not always clear why a narcissist, emotional vampire, or drama llama targets you. Sometimes it’s random. Most of the time their motivations have nothing to do with you.
It’s never your fault.
However, it is your responsibility to defend your job and career against these dangerous people. You can’t rely on other people to do it for you.
By taking action, you might give your coworkers courage to stand up as well. Especially if they’re also being intimidated or bullied. The more people who band together, the more effective you can be against dangerous people at work.
Defend yourself against dangerous people by grey rocking, seeking support, setting boundaries, and documenting bad behaviour. While you’re dealing with a narcissist, emotional vampire, or drama llama, remember to take care of yourself. Reduce stress with meditation, relaxation exercises, healthy eating, physical exercise, and staying positive.
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