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Imagine a bright recruit, starting her job, feeling like she truly belongs. Her new boss praises her work, tells her she has great potential, and even shares insider “secrets,” earning her trust. But, over time, things shift.
In public, her boss questions her decisions when things go wrong while offering support in private. When confronted, the boss denies everything, saying, “I never said that, did I? That was all you!” The boss’ gentle way of recounting events makes the employee feel like she’s the one at fault. Outwardly, she seems fine, but inside, she feels like an imposter, losing her confidence and questioning her competence.
If you can relate to her, you’ve probably also been a victim of workplace gaslighting, when an individual or group of people (e.g., a supervisor, colleague, or team) subtly or overtly makes another employee question their reality, competence, or performance. It can be part of a toxic work culture and is often used to undermine or control someone.
Gaslighting is an insidious form of abuse that can deeply affect an individual’s mental health and job performance. Here are two signs to look out for.
1. Your Boss Dismisses Your Side of the Story
Manipulative gaslighting is a tactic used to undermine people’s credibility, especially women’s, by making them doubt their own testimony, according to a 2019 study published in The Monist, Oxford’s oldest academic journal of philosophy.
This form of gaslighting goes beyond reasonable disagreement and aims to erode confidence in one’s own perceptions and experiences.
It consists of two main tactics:
- Sidestepping: The gaslighter avoids or ignores any evidence that supports the individual’s story, making their claims seem invalid.
- Displacing: The gaslighter blames the individual by suggesting that the problem lies with their thinking or personality, implying that they are unreliable or flawed.
One Reddit user shared an experience of having conversations and making decisions with their boss only to have the boss deny knowledge of the conversation if the decisions turn out to be wrong. Another commented worrying about being told they’re not doing something fast or well enough, but then being told they’re rushing or impatient if they take action to rectify something.
This constant shifting of expectations and criticism creates a lose-lose scenario for the employee.
No matter what you do, it’s never enough or always wrong, leaving you in a constant state of guilt and self-doubt. Keeping written documentation of meaningful or important conversations is critical to protecting yourself from this form of manipulation.
Another simple technique to shut down manipulation is to avoid one-on-one interactions with your boss as much as possible. Always have a trusted colleague accompany you and bear witness to your encounters with them. This will ensure that your side of the story is never twisted out of shape due to a “he-said-she-said” situation. If the gaslighter’s weapon of choice is isolation, then staying united as a team against their manipulation should be your first line of defense.
2. Your Boss Erodes Your Confidence
Workplace gaslighting consists of harmful behavior by supervisors involving trivialization, downplaying employee concerns, and affliction, causing emotional distress, according to a 2023 study published in Frontiers in Psychology.
Gaslighting undermines employees’ confidence, leads to emotional exhaustion, and has been linked to reduced job satisfaction, often triggered by role conflicts at work.
A Reddit user explained that she went as far as blaming her postpartum state for her apparent lack of performance at a position she’d held successfully for more than a couple of years. Turns out she was unjustly and unknowingly being held accountable for responsibilities outside her purview. Being gaslighted at work, to her shock, made her current position look like the lowest point on an otherwise stellar career graph.
Gaslighting Essential Reads
This is a textbook example of how gaslighting can lead you to doubt your abilities, even when you’ve consistently performed well in the past. You may start feeling as if your successes were a fluke, and each day becomes a mental battle to prove your worth.
When you are exposed to manipulative leadership long enough, you might slowly forget what competent leadership looks and feels like. This is why it is important that you keep in touch with previous mentors and teammates, both professional and personal.
Even a simple conversation with them can remind you not only of what the role of a boss is at the workplace is, but also of your accomplishments and abilities you’ve earned and developed through your hard work over the course of your career.
Manipulation dilutes your self-belief by fabricating lies that cannot be exposed easily. It is prudent to use your career milestones and trusted colleague testimonials as empirical evidence against the gaslighter’s narratives.
Manipulative management or leadership at work constantly shifts expectations, changes rules, or subtly implies that you’re not doing enough. The long-term effect of this manipulation can be devastating. Reaching out for external validation from trusted colleagues or mentors can help break this cycle.
A version of this post also appears on Forbes.com.
