How to Handle Difficult Bosses and Toxic Co-workers with Tessa West

In episode three of this Better@Work episode, we’re excited to welcome the amazing Tessa West for a high energy, fun and insightful chat. I came across Tessa in the last year through her amazing book, Jerks at Work: Toxic Coworkers and What to do About Them. Social psychologist Tessa has spent years leveraging science to help people solve interpersonal conflicts in the workplace. What she discovered is that most of our go-to tactics don’t work because they fail to address the specific motivations that drive bad behaviour. In the book, she deep dives the seven jerks you’re most likely to encounter in the workplace, drawing on decades of original research to expose their inner workings and weak points — and ultimately deliver an effective game plan for stopping each type before they take you down with them. It’s a book I wish I had many years ago.  Quick episode breakdown: I chat with Tessa around what her inspired to work in the area of interpersonal interaction and communication, and why she wrote her book Jerks at Work: Toxic Coworkers and What to do About Them  Tessa talks about the seven types (archetypes) of jerks at work; kiss-up/kick-downer, credit stealer, bulldozer, free-rider, micromanager, neglectful boss and the gaslighter We agree there are always jerks at work, however you can deal with them by understanding how they tick, and using tactics to understand their motivations and restore your emotional wellbeing I share my challenges with a gaslighter and micromanager and we talk through the types of conflicts you're likely to encounter in the workplace and evidence-based approaches for dealing with toxic bosses, annoying coworkers, and difficult people at work. While dealing with challenging people is not easy, we also have some fun talking through some of personal examples of toxic individuals (sometimes you have to laugh are their brazen approach, humour helps too!!).  Tessa talks to me about her quiz we can take to make sure we are not the jerk at work Finally, Tessa shares an amazing tip on some advice she received which makes her better at work Let’s Take This offline In our “Let’s take this offline” segment I debrief on Tessa’s key insights with my friend Annette and answer a question from Emma about dealing with a difficult manager.  Get in touch: [email protected] or betteratwork.net Get in touch on Instagram: @betteratwork_ Get in touch on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cathal-quinlan/ Send us a question or leave us a voicemail: betteratwork.net/contact-us/ Get the newsletter: betteratwork.net About Tessa Tessa West is an Associate Professor of Psychology at New York University. A leading expert on interpersonal interaction and communication, and quantitative analysis and statistics, her work has been covered in the New York Times, The Guardian, the WSJ, TIME, the Huffington Post and The Globe and Mail. Her experiences as a rising leader in the world of academia - often as the only woman, and youngest person in the role by a magnitude of decades - have given her a unique perspective on jerks at work. She regularly gives talks to global organisations including Capital One, KPMG, Gilead and Pfizer, to help employees improve their relationships.   Book: Jerks at Work: Toxic Coworkers and What to do About Them Quiz: “Am I a Jerk at Work?” Website: TessaWestAuthor.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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