6. EMOTIONAL VAMPIRES: ANTISOCIAL BULLIES

Short Notes From:

EMOTIONAL VAMPIRES AT WORK

Dealing with Bosses and Coworkers Who Brain You Dry

Albert J. Bernstein, PhD.

McGraw Hill Education

258 pages

The antisocial that most likely will give you trouble at work are in 2 basic models: Bullies & con artist.  Quite a few of them have the kind of charm it takes to get promoted way beyond their level of competence.  From above, they look greed. From below, it’s an entirely different story.

Antisocial bullies are the most menacing of the emotional vampires.  The most erotically skill needed to deal with emotional vampires is the ability to think rather than react when subjected to emotional pressure.  Bullies are hooked on excitement.  Their drug of choice is intimidation.  As bosses, they delight in making their subordinates squirm.

Bullies look for reasons to attack.  The cause is unimportant.  They do it because it feels good.  Bullying antisocial bosses often create fear and confusion in the crudest way possible with profanity, harsh teasing and name calling.  For other people, angry cut, burst has a purpose, for antisocial bullies they are an end unto themselves.

Your first response in an emotional situation is usually your own habitual kind of fast thinking.  Often it plays right into the vampire’s hands.  In stressful situations, your first idea is rarely your best.  Some suggestion is:

·         Ask for time

·         Repeat asking for time if necessary (in emotional situations, before you say anything else, ask for a moment to think)

·         Know your goal

·         Maintain control by asking question (ignoring attacks and asking questions)

 

Most conflicts with bullies are really about dominance.  Content hardly matters.  Dominance is about hierarchies.  Bullies get off on beating people down, especially people who can’t fight back.  To the people above them in hierarchy, they are obsequious as they expect you to be.  The rule is simple and direct: the boss gives the orders and the subordinates follow them.

We have to listen to our superior, but they do not have to listen to us.  This is one rule you just have to accept without getting bent out the shape.  Laughter at work has much more to do with who is telling the joke than how funny it is.  Bullies laugh at you.  They never laugh at themselves.

Even if your facts are incontrovertible, superiors, even if they aren’t Bullies, will not be wrong.  Whatever point you have to make will be more effective if it is presented as a request for information.  In general the person asking question is asserting dominance over the person answering them.  Subordinates can request clarification, but not justification.  Make sure you know the difference.

Most of the conflicts you are likely to experience with emotional vampire bosses begin as struggles for dominance.

To be continued…

Coming next: antisocial con artist….