No one thinks it will ever happen to them.
And when it does, it's often brushed aside
as typical workplace politics.
They are anything but...
You need to know what manipulation tactics narcissists use
and what they look like in the workplace
to avoid finding yourself manipulated and controlled.
Now this is a heavier topic,
I'd like to slightly raise the positive vibe.
So if you can do that by tapping the like button,
we're going to get straight into it.
The first narcissistic manipulation tactic is moving the goalposts.
This is something I have heard from client after client,
"Nothing I ever did was good enough"
Does your boss or coworker ask for something or
set a goal and when you achieve it,
the endpoint has magically moved.
For example, if your boss says that you're going to get a bonus,
when you achieve 10 sales and you achieve 10 sales,
then they'll say I didn't say 10. I said 15.
Things along those lines.
Now of course, when you try to hold them to
that original agreement or original metric, even if it's in writing,
they're going to use the second manipulation tactic:
Gaslighting. If you haven't heard of gaslighting,
it's when someone it causes a another person to question
their own reality or even their insanity.
You understood the assignment,
you completed the assignment,
but they're telling you you're all wrong. T
hey claim they never said that that you said
you would do this other thing, etc.
This will make the most sense if I give you an example.
So in the story, the boss let's call him Steve
brings in his employee, Emma, to a client meeting.
Steve told Emma the agenda was covered and
she was mostly going to be there to make an introduction.
So no preparation was needed.
But as Steve and Emma arrive to the meeting together,
Steve asks Emma what she prepared to present.
Emma says she has a few statistics she can share
but she didn't have anything prepared.
She was told not to Steve than berates Emma for
not preparing anything when he specifically told her not to.
She begins questioning...
did she misunderstand the assignment?
Did something change that she had missed along the way?
Gaslighting like this often coincides with
the next manipulation tactic as well, projection.
Projection is when the narcissist the bad boss,
the bad coworker project their issues onto their subject.
To illustrate, let's continue talking about Steve and Emma.
Steve accuses Emma of being inattentive and
says that she's always letting things fall through the cracks.
And not just that her communication skills atrocious,
she's disorganized and might have just cost them this client.
Emma isn't just distraught at the feedback.
She's confused by it.
She's always been celebrated for her great
communication skills in the past, and in her entire career,
she has never let a ball drop.
Now because we are objectively looking at the facts,
we can see that Steve is projecting his issues
with communication and organization on to Emma.
One way you can spot projection is that you receive feedback,
especially critical feedback that doesn't align
with anything you've been told before,
or even contradicts feedback that you've been given in the past.
Like if Emma had always been praised for how organized she was,
but she was telling her she was disorganized.
This would be a sign that he is projecting on to Emma.
Now I know that these seem obvious,
but when they're happening to you in real life,
they're not obvious, especially when they're combined
with a next narcissistic manipulation tactic:
changing topics and word salad.
This is where the topics are shifting and the spin is happening
faster than you can keep up with it.
When a narcissist or a bad boss or a terrible coworker i
s using this tactic, it can be very hard to follow
and quite honestly very disorienting.
If you've ever walked into a conversation or
a meeting which you thought was going to go one way
and you walked into the meeting like
What just happened.
You've experienced this. For example,
if you're supposed to be talking about sales forecasts
with your manager, but all of a sudden your boss
is convincing you that Chad's underperformance is all your fault.
Now in this, the words that they use are going to be real words,
but they won't necessarily make intrinsic sense.
And this is a manipulation tactic that they use in order to
divert attention away from themselves and
avoid any of their own accountability. In addition,
the narcissistic boss or coworker may also use
the next manipulation tactic triangulation,
especially for those of you who have been in a toxic workplace
or are in a toxic workplace, y
ou're probably going to be familiar with this one.
This is where the narcissist in our example,
Steve uses other coworkers or employees as a part
of their manipulation. And this can take a few different shapes.
Steve might recruit Chad to take his side.
Steve might tell Emma how much more capable Rachel is
and how much more potential she has.
Or Steve might tell Emma
that he heard from Patty how no one likes her.
This can be real, because you're not going to be the only one
that the narcissist is manipulating, or it can be imagined
to create an insecurity or a lack of confidence in yourself
and a lack of trust amongst your coworkers.
And this actually might amp up with
the next narcissistic manipulation tactic infantilization
This is where the narcissistic manager or coworker d
isregards your expertise inability by undermining your knowledge
and your experience, sometimes leading into your
perceived lack of experience to make their case.
A lot of women that I work with experienced this in two regards
First being infantilized for their age.
"They're only 24..."
Meanwhile, Chad's 24, and he's the boss's favorite.
As well as for their perceived lack of maturity as a result of
their personal interests, like buying expensive handbags.
when no one is questioning Chad and his decision to buy a Rolex.
I've seen this one happen a lot along with the next manipulation tactic
amplification, and this one has two behaviors that go into it.
And I've met a lot of you will have experienced this one.
So let me know in the comments, if you have had you had one
of those bosses that never acknowledges any of your
accomplishments or achievements,
no matter how major it's pure crickets,
or when their hand is forced to acknowledge it,
they're gonna play it off like a fluke,
or it's not that big of a deal.
However, when you make a mistake,
miss a metric or stumble otherwise,
they broadcast it to everyone shaming you in meetings,
making distasteful jokes about it.
Those jokes are never really jokes.
This both centers them, which is what the narcissist really wants,
and it casts you into the shadows
and even can make you less likely to step back into the spotlight later,
which I think is where you really belong.
Next, we need to talk about one of the tactics that narcissists use
to manipulate you in the workplace that I know a lot of you
are struggling with: enmeshment.
Those work life boundaries that
we keep on talking about around here,
they cannot exist with a narcissist because
the narcissist only cares about their needs.
And there are so many ways that enmeshment shows up
in many workplaces. today.
We're like a family after hours team events,
expecting you to reply to emails at the weekend,
where everyone is all up in each other's personal business.
And as came up multiple times in my last video
about saying no at work and inability to allow you to
maintain any personal or work life boundaries or
even fathom mentioning the word no.
Another very common manipulation tactic used in workplaces
by narcissists and bad bosses and the like is
being set up to fail.
Around here I talk a lot about Win Win situations.
It's honestly one of my core values.
Narcissists do not like win win situations.
In fact, they thrive off the failure and stress of others.
And seriously how toxic is that this can be through
subtle or overt sabotage at work,
which I have a whole video about,
or it can be through malicious action or inaction
like omitting you from the invite of that important meeting,
not telling you about that deadline until the last minute
or not passing along important information to you.
Another very common manipulation tactic used especially
by narcissistic bosses is inappropriate restrictions.
From the use of employee monitoring software to
the micromanagement of your everyday tasks.
The narcissistic manipulator overly controls your target
or their team to ensure they have no path to
happiness, success or fulfillment.
This is why Steve gets mad at Emma when she doesn't
answer his call at 11:30am on a Sunday morning or
demand she cancel her plans to work late,
asks her to submit timesheets when there is no practical use for them
other than seeing how she's spending her time,
even though he's already getting key logs and screenshots of
everything she does on her work devices.
Of course, they will pretend this is totally normal through
the use of the next manipulation tactic,
which is rationalization
"Oh, all managers do this" is the epitome of this problem.
Whether it's micromanaging their employees,
finding ways to justify their behavior,
whether it's through false claims that they're
making in their word salad or not.
"Elon does this and he's a billionaire"
when whether Elon actually does that is up to question
and why is it always Elon they're talking about?
No matter what the narcissistic manipulator will always
find a way to excuse their behavior to themselves and to others,
well, finding a way to blame you.
And when these manipulation tactics don't work
to the narcissist liking, they may escalate to the final manipulation tactic
we need to talk about today. And that is threats.
There are many threats that are used as manipulation tactics
in the workplace today, such as your boss threatening to fire you,
a coworker threatening to tell your boss about that mistake
that you made or any other threat that threaten your job.
When they can't control you through manipulation,
they will try to control you through fear.
And that's why if you're working with a narcissist,
you're probably in a toxic work environment.
And if you've been hanging with me for a while you know
that there's only one solution to a toxic work environment,
leave the toxic work environment.
Of course, this is something that you need to plan for
with a lot of urgency if they are threatening your job.
Always have a plan B and be ready to jump to it as quickly as possible.
As you work on your escape, it's really important for you to
have some survival tactics to help you
survive a toxic work environment with as few bruises as possible.
I want you to go and watch this video right now
where I share some of those with you.
But before you go if this video enlightened you to
some of the manipulation tactics that narcissists can use at work,
give the video like! Really helps my channel,
makes you my favorite career bestie,
it's a win win situation because we like those!
If you haven't already consider subscribing
and as always, my friend thank you so much for watching.
I will see you in the next video.
Bye for now.