Many articles tell you how to deal with toxic coworkers. Here are three pieces of advice you should approach with caution.

1) Tuning Out Toxic Coworkers

In 2011, Tavanti made several suggestions for dealing with a toxic coworker. One of the proposals is for you to “develop indifference and emotional detachment.”¹ Simply ignoring or trying to deny the abusive behavior exists does not reduce the amount of pain it causes. The net effect of failing to process the pain could result in far more emotional discomfort. By choosing to process the toxic behavior as it happens, your emotional immune system can activate, and you can begin to heal.²

2) Escalating to Your Manager or the HR Department

You should think carefully before following the advice of articles encouraging people to reach out to Human Resources (HR), your manager, or someone above your manager.^1,3 You need to be careful not to put yourself in a worse situation by having unrealistic expectations about what HR might do. When people have unrealistic expectations, they tend to overlook the risks involved with their actions.⁴ Ask yourself, what will happen if I go to my manager or HR and neither does anything to fix the problem? What will happen if my boss or HR informs the toxic coworker I made a complaint? Relying on HR is a risky strategy considering only 15% of people found their employers helpful in dealing with these issues.^5,6 Regardless of what happens, the toxic coworker will not view your complaint as a learning opportunity. Instead, they will view it as a direct attack and are likely to respond with more abuse.

By choosing to process the toxic behavior as it happens, your emotional immune system can activate, and you can begin to heal.

3) Unstructured Confrontation

You can always stand up to the toxic coworker, but poorly planned confrontation can make things worse.^1,3,5 One researcher found 85% of the people who chose to avoid or confront the toxic individual were unhappy with the outcome. Other research has found confrontation with toxic coworkers unsatisfying.^3,5 Part of the reason people might be so disappointed with the conflict is that they had unrealistic expectations or used ineffective techniques to establish boundaries. Setting healthy boundaries with abusive people is essential, but when facing an abuser, it’s not only what you say, but also how you say it.

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References

1. Tavanti M. Managing toxic leaders: Dysfunctional patterns in organizational leadership and how to deal with them. Human Resource Management. 2011;2011:127-136.
2. Wilson TD, Gilbert DT. Affective forecasting. Advances in experimental social psychology. 2003;35:345-411.
3. Whicker ML. Toxic Leaders : When Organizations Go Bad / Marcia Lynn Whicker. Quorum Books; 1996.
4. Armor DA, Taylor SE. Situated optimism: Specific outcome expectancies and self-regulation. Advances in experimental social psychology. 1998;30:309-379.
5. Porath C. An antidote to incivility. Harvard business review. 2016;94(4):22.
6. Porath C, Pearson C. The price of incivility. Harvard business review. 2013;91(1-2):115-121.