People won’t tell you if you’re a jerk at work. You may not realize how your behavior affects your colleagues’ health and time if you’re the jerk nobody likes to work with. People are more likely to suffer in silence than say what they think about jerks.
Tessa West, a psychologist at New York University and author of “Jerks At Work: Toxic Coworkers and What to Do About Them,” said confronting jerks is difficult. Negative feedback isn’t normal. People find it hard to see themselves as the source of jerks because of the temptation to compensate for them.
Image Credit: Shutterstock/PeopleImages.com – Yuri A
Take a look at yourself if you want to know what people think. As organizational psychologist Laura Gallaher said, “Jerk behavior is subjective for each individual and organization.” See if any of these warning signs resonate with you:
You Work With People Who Quit Often
Your surprise at people leaving your team could indicate you’re the problem. Leadership and executive coach Elena Armijo identified some of the main signs of jerk behavior at work, such as people quitting without sharing why they quit.
Most people are oblivious to what is happening around them because it’s too painful to look inward,” Armijo said. A jerk stuck in a cycle would continue as they are rather than grow.
Image Credit: Shutterstock/tsyhun
Always Pointing Out The team’s Errors
Maybe you’re being a jerk to your colleagues if you always think your team is the problem. Rather than dealing with your fears, you focus on others’ inadequacies instead of your own, Gallaher says. There’s a good chance your ‘critic’ defense mechanism has been triggered if you can easily add ‘you dummy’ to the end of your statement.