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Such a person can poison the atmosphere in the team with his presence alone. Demotivate colleagues or subordinates, make them feel worthless. If desired, he can seem quite charming and adequate, skillfully hiding his personality disorder. And most importantly, it is almost impossible to recognize this when hiring such an employee.
Since the company has a new employee, Anna, there has been tension in the air. Even the cleaners tried to avoid meeting the new girl. Her very presence created unnecessary stress. As soon as she entered the room, everyone immediately froze, as if waiting for her to say something unpleasant again.
Anna was given remarks because of her aggression and intransigence, but nothing changed. On the contrary, scandals increased as she took revenge on everyone who, as she thought, spoke ill of her. Various rumors spread around the office, fertile ground for hypocrisy and mutual accusations arose. Everyone saw the problem, except Anna’s boss. Unfortunately, because of this, all attempts to change something gave only a short-term result.
When the HR department received several complaints, Maria, the employee who hired Anna, decided to take a closer look at her personal file. She did not learn anything unusual about Anna. She had a good resume, proven references, positive reviews of her work, she passed all the required checks. Anna had some problems with communication skills, but nothing serious. So what’s the deal?
With different personality disorders, selfishness, lack of flexibility, distortions in the perception of reality manifest themselves in their own way.
Perhaps it was that Anna suffered from a personality disorder, something that almost never comes up during job interviews.
There are quite a few types of personality disorders: paranoid, schizoid, schizotypal, antisocial, borderline, hysterical, avoidant, dependent, obsessive-compulsive. In each of them selfishness, lack of flexibility, distortions in the perception of reality and impulsiveness are manifested in their own way. All these symptoms occur in various situations from adolescence.
Here are a few signs that you can tell if your colleague is suffering from this disorder.
1. You feel like you’re going crazy
Other employees, when communicating with Anna, sometimes seemed to go crazy. Often they could not understand and explain what was happening. Often Anna managed to convince her colleagues that the problem was in them, she listed many of their flaws, mistakes and her fears. After such conversations, these employees began to worry, lose motivation, and may even become depressed.
2. They act like Dr. Jekyll, then like Mr. Hyde
Anna behaved differently with colleagues than with management and friends. Although personality disorders appear in any setting, these manifestations can vary. When Anna wanted to impress someone, she could be very charming, but over time she dropped the mask and showed her true face.
3. Around them you have to “walk on tiptoe”
All employees tried not to provoke Anna in any way. They got good at reading her body language to understand what mood she was in today. When she was not at work, everyone was happy, because the atmosphere in the office immediately became lighter and more relaxed.
4. They resist change.
Anna willingly talked about the need to change something, meaning that those around her should change to please her. She did not want her colleagues to have healthy personal boundaries at all, and all the time she tried to subjugate and suppress those around her in order to control them.
5. They lie
It always seemed to other employees that Anna was deceiving them. She did not fall for obvious lies, but she exaggerated something all the time, avoided discussing topics that were painful for her, and withheld important information. In addition, she constantly blamed others for exactly what she herself was guilty of, thus trying to divert attention from her misdeeds.
6. They manipulate others
Anna tried to distort reality all the time. She tried to force others into submission through psychological abuse and manipulation. These could be insults (“you are a fool”), distortions (“it was completely wrong”), “gaslighting” (“if you think so, you are crazy”), threats (“do as I say, or it will be worse ”), coercion (“you have to do it”), black-and-white thinking (“there are two ways – mine and the wrong one”), financial pressure (“your salary depends on me”).
7. They disclaim responsibility
If such people ever apologize at all, it is always with caveats like “but you too…”. In fact, they will never admit their guilt. It’s always someone else’s fault. When one of the colleagues pointed out to Anna a problem, he himself became another victim of her attacks.
8. They create chaos around them.
At work, there is absolutely no need for extra stress. However, Anna felt best in just such an atmosphere. When everything was calm, she found some reason for complaints and discontent. She calmed down, only getting what she wanted, and then not for long. Soon everything was repeated again.
9. They put themselves first.
Anna thought only of herself, and spoke of others only when she accused them of something. She was sure that her experiences, thoughts, actions and views are always correct. She felt superior to others, and therefore productive cooperation with her was impossible.
Of course, all this creates an unhealthy work environment, leading to employee dissatisfaction and high employee turnover. Anna explained to Maria that she wanted to make the workflow more productive, but in fact, her behavior bothered those around her and interfered with open communication. Several attempts to get Anna to change failed, and she ended up being asked to leave the company, to the delight of her colleagues.
About the author: Kristin Hammond is a counseling psychologist.