Handling Toxic People
TRAVIS
BRADBERRY
Co-author
of Emotional Intelligence 2.0 and President at TalentSmart
Toxic
people defy logic. Some are blissfully unaware of the negative impact that they
have on those around them, and others seem to derive satisfaction from creating
chaos and pushing other people’s buttons. Either way, they create unnecessary
complexity, strife, and worst of all stress.
Studies
have long shown that stress can have a lasting, negative impact on the brain.
Exposure to even a few days of stress compromises the effectiveness of neurons
in the hippocampus—an important brain area responsible for reasoning and
memory. Weeks of stress cause reversible damage to neuronal dendrites (the
small “arms” that brain cells use to communicate with each other), and months
of stress can permanently destroy neurons. Stress is a formidable threat to
your success—when stress gets out of control, your brain and your performance
suffer.
Most
sources of stress at work are easy to identify. If your non-profit is working
to land a grant that your organization needs to function, you’re bound to feel
stress and likely know how to manage it. It’s the unexpected sources of stress
that take you by surprise and harm you the most.
Recent
research from the Department of Biological and Clinical Psychology at Friedrich
Schiller University in Germany found that exposure to stimuli that cause strong
negative emotions—the same kind of exposure you get when dealing with toxic
people—caused subjects’ brains to have a massive stress response. Whether its
negativity, cruelty, the victim syndrome, or just plain craziness, toxic people
drive your brain into a stressed-out state that should be avoided at all costs.
The
ability to manage your emotions and remain calm under pressure has a direct
link to your performance. TalentSmart has conducted research with more than a
million people, and we’ve found that 90% of top performers are skilled at
managing their emotions in times of stress in order to remain calm and in
control. One of their greatest gifts is the ability to neutralize toxic people.
Top performers have well-honed coping strategies that they employ to keep toxic
people at bay.
While
I’ve run across numerous effective strategies that successful people employ
when dealing with toxic people, what follows are twelve of the best. To deal
with toxic people effectively, you need an approach that enables you, across
the board, to control what you can and eliminate what you can’t. The important
thing to remember is that you are in control of far more than you realize.
1. They Set Limits (Especially with Complainers)
Complainers
and negative people are bad news because they wallow in their problems and fail
to focus on solutions. They want people to join their pity party so that they
can feel better about themselves. People often feel pressure to listen to
complainers because they don’t want to be seen as callous or rude, but there’s
a fine line between lending a sympathetic ear and getting sucked into their negative
emotional spiral.
You
can avoid this only by setting limits and distancing yourself when necessary.
Think of it this way: if the complainer were smoking, would you sit there all
afternoon inhaling the second-hand smoke? You’d distance yourself, and you
should do the same with complainers. A great way to set limits is to ask
complainers how they intend to fix the problem. They will either quiet down or
redirect the conversation in a productive direction.
2. They Don’t Die in the Fight
Successful
people know how important it is to live to fight another day, especially when
your foe is a toxic individual. In conflict, unchecked emotion makes you dig
your heels in and fight the kind of battle that can leave you severely damaged.
When you read and respond to your emotions, you’re able to choose your battles
wisely and only stand your ground when the time is right.
3. They Rise Above
Toxic
people drive you crazy because their behavior is so irrational. Make no mistake
about it; their behavior truly goes against reason. So why do you allow
yourself to respond to them emotionally and get sucked into the mix?
The more irrational and off-base
someone is, the easier it should be for you to remove yourself from their
traps. Quit trying to beat them at their own game. Distance yourself from them
emotionally and approach your interactions like they’re a science project (or
you’re their shrink, if you prefer the analogy). You don’t need to respond to
the emotional chaos—only the facts.
4. They Stay Aware of Their Emotions
Maintaining
an emotional distance requires awareness. You can’t stop someone from pushing
your buttons if you don’t recognize when it’s happening. Sometimes you’ll find
yourself in situations where you’ll need to regroup and choose the best way
forward. This is fine and you shouldn’t be afraid to buy yourself some time to
do so.
Think
of it this way—if a mentally unstable person approaches you on the street and
tells you he’s John F. Kennedy, you’re unlikely to set him straight. When you
find yourself with a coworker who is engaged in similarly derailed thinking,
sometimes it’s best to just smile and nod. If you’re going to have to
straighten them out, it’s better to give yourself some time to plan the best
way to go about it.
5. They Establish Boundaries
This
is the area where most people tend to sell themselves short. They feel like
because they work or live with someone, they have no way to control the chaos.
This couldn’t be further from the truth. Once you’ve found your way to Rise
Above a person, you’ll begin to find their behavior more predictable and easier
to understand. This will equip you to think rationally about when and where you
have to put up with them and when you don’t. For example, even if you work with
someone closely on a project team, that doesn’t mean that you need to have the
same level of one-on-one interaction with them that you have with other team
members.
You
can establish a boundary, but you’ll have to do so consciously and proactively.
If you let things happen naturally, you are bound to find yourself constantly
embroiled in difficult conversations. If you set boundaries and decide when and
where you’ll engage a difficult person, you can control much of the chaos. The
only trick is to stick to your guns and keep boundaries in place when the
person tries to encroach upon them, which they will.
6. They Won’t Let Anyone Limit Their Joy
When
your sense of pleasure and satisfaction are derived from the opinions of other
people, you are no longer the master of your own happiness. When emotionally
intelligent people feel good about something that they’ve done, they won’t let
anyone’s opinions or snide remarks take that away from them.
While
it’s impossible to turn off your reactions to what others think of you, you
don’t have to compare yourself to others, and you can always take people’s
opinions with a grain of salt. That way, no matter what toxic people are
thinking or doing, your self-worth comes from within. Regardless of what people
think of you at any particular moment, one thing is certain—you’re never as
good or bad as they say you are.
7. They Don’t Focus on Problems—Only Solutions
Where
you focus your attention determines your emotional state. When you fixate on
the problems you’re facing, you create and prolong negative emotions and
stress. When you focus on actions to better yourself and your circumstances,
you create a sense of personal efficacy that produces positive emotions and
reduces stress.
When
it comes to toxic people, fixating on how crazy and difficult they are gives them
power over you. Quit thinking about how troubling your difficult person is, and
focus instead on how you’re going to go about handling them. This makes you
more effective by putting you in control, and it will reduce the amount of
stress you experience when interacting with them.
8. They Don’t Forget
Emotionally
intelligent people are quick to forgive, but that doesn’t mean that they
forget. Forgiveness requires letting go of what’s happened so that you can move
on. It doesn’t mean you’ll give a wrongdoer another chance. Successful people
are unwilling to be bogged down unnecessarily by others’ mistakes, so they let
them go quickly and are assertive in protecting themselves from future harm.
9. They Squash Negative Self-Talk
Sometimes
you absorb the negativity of other people. There’s nothing wrong with feeling
bad about how someone is treating you, but your self-talk (the thoughts you
have about your feelings) can either intensify the negativity or help you move
past it. Negative self-talk is unrealistic, unnecessary, and self-defeating. It
sends you into a downward emotional spiral that is difficult to pull out of.
You should avoid negative self-talk at all costs.
10. They Limit Their Caffeine Intake
Drinking
caffeine triggers the release of adrenaline. Adrenaline is the source of the
“fight-or-flight” response, a survival mechanism that forces you to stand up
and fight or run for the hills when faced with a threat. The fight-or-flight
mechanism sidesteps rational thinking in favor of a faster response. This is
great when a bear is chasing you, but not so great when you’re surprised in the
hallway by an angry coworker.
11. They Get Some Sleep
I’ve
beaten this one to death over the years and can’t say enough about the
importance of sleep to increasing your emotional intelligence and managing your
stress levels. When you sleep, your brain literally recharges, shuffling
through the day’s memories and storing or discarding them (which causes
dreams), so that you wake up alert and clear-headed. Your self-control,
attention, and memory are all reduced when you don’t get enough—or the right
kind—of sleep. Sleep deprivation raises stress hormone levels on its own, even
without a stressor present.
A
good night’s sleep makes you more positive, creative, and proactive in your
approach to toxic people, giving you the perspective you need to deal
effectively with them.
12. They Use Their Support System
It’s
tempting, yet entirely ineffective, to attempt tackling everything by yourself.
To deal with toxic people, you need to recognize the weaknesses
in your approach to them. This means tapping into your support system
to gain perspective on a challenging person. Everyone has someone at work
and/or outside work who is on their team, rooting for them, and ready to help
them get the best from a difficult situation. Identify these individuals in
your life and make an effort to seek their insight and assistance when you need
it. Something as simple as explaining the situation can lead to a new
perspective. Most of the time, other people can see a solution that you can’t
because they are not as emotionally invested in the situation.
Bringing It All Together
Before
you get this system to work brilliantly, you’re going to have to pass some
tests. Most of the time, you will find yourself tested by touchy interactions
with problem people. Thankfully, the plasticity of the brain allows it to mold
and change as you practice new behaviors, even when you fail. Implementing
these healthy, stress-relieving techniques for dealing with difficult people
will train your brain to handle stress more effectively and decrease the
likelihood of ill effects.
A version of this article first
appeared at TalentSmart.com.
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