Workplace Micro-Aggressions

The Unseen Enemy

What Just Happened?

Workplace Micro-Aggressions

The Unseen Enemy

“The most common form of hostility people endure during a workday is micro-aggression.”

Micro-aggressions are subtle yet destabilizing because they are little barbs that, in isolation, could be brushed off. When you experience one, you may tell yourself you’re being too sensitive, slightly paranoid, they didn’t mean it or that you’re overreacting. When micro-aggressions occur as part of a pattern of behaviour, they negatively and profoundly affect your mental health and sense of well-being.

Micro-aggressions can lead to undermining your confidence, disrupting your ability to do your job, creating anxiety, and diminishing concentration, and you may feel you’re walking on eggshells and it could even lead to sick days and/or stress leave when it continues for an extended period of time. In worst-case scenarios, it can lead to PTSD.

When you are a target of micro-aggressions,

you may find yourself perplexed and wondering, “What just happened, and why are they targeting me?” It can be helpful to understand what motivates micro-aggressions. It is rarely due to the incompetence of any performance issues of the target. More often than not, it is because something about the target threatens or triggers the micro-aggressor.

Micro-aggressors inflate their sense of self by attacking real or concocted flaws, mistakes or weaknesses in others. They engage in acts of gaslighting, such as telling you to complete an assignment and then claiming that you did the wrong one when you followed exactly what they asked you for. They attribute false personality characteristics or motives to you that do not reflect your personality or your work. They often take credit for your work or pretend it was someone else’s. They may shun you at meetings, speak over you, eye roll when you talk and get others onside until you feel alienated, humiliated and hopeless. Others may secretly support you behind the scenes but fear being targeted by the micro-aggressor, so they lay low, try to stay out of it, or possibly even seem agreeable with them.

Sadly, these behaviours occur in almost every workplace. People who act this way are rarely held accountable and typically are in positions of power. Because the behaviours are subtle enough in isolation from all the others, they go under the radar.

What should you do about micro-aggressors?

If you are a leader who witnesses micro-aggressions, you need to develop skills to hold individuals accountable for behaviours that create a toxic workplace. If you are a target of micro-aggressions, keep a detailed log with times, who was present, what happened, what was said in chronological order, how it made you feel, and the impact on you and/or the group that was present. Micro-aggressions are a form of workplace harassment because it reflects a hostile pattern of behaviour, which is why it needs to be documented and reported. You also need to arm yourself with skills to deal with difficult people while learning self-care to manage your stress and mental health reactions to these behaviours.

By Donna Marshall M.A., Counselling Psychology, RP CEO and Co-Founder.

Endorsed by

HRPA
Excellence Canada
Gold-Standard-in-Harassment-Program-from-The-Ontario-Psychological-Association
Tom Beegan
Donna Marshall

Donna Marshall
M.A., Counselling Psychology, RP
CEO and Co-Founder

Dr. Stephanie Bot

Dr. Stephanie Bot,
C. Psych., Psychoanalyst
President and Co-Founder

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