The Victim, Bully, and Author: Which One is You?
Work personas that define us and how to deal with them.
“A company is a group of people organized to create a product or a service.”— Elon Musk.
People are complicated. That’s the baseline. People at work, well, they’re very complicated. On a good day, people are a mixed bag of emotions, desires, fears, ambitions, joy, baggage from previous scars, and much more. At work, a sense of survival is thrown into the mix, upping the ante on the complexity.
When we walk into work every day, we bring our entire selves with us, warts and all. If you ignore the behavioral fluctuations we all invariably experience, you’ll realize that each of us has a signature persona in which we show up to work every day. A persona defines us in the eyes of teams, peers, and managers. We may not realize we have one, but we do.
I won’t rehash what’s already written about archetypes at work. Instead, I’d like to explore the most common characters or personas people in a professional setting embody: the victim, the bully, and the author.
Alright, let’s get right to it.
#1 The Victim
There are real victims in the world. Victims of crime, assault, and disasters. This post isn’t about them.
We’ve all been there. Feeling slighted, disrespected, and unappreciated by someone at work. Maybe you are interrupted in a meeting or passed over for a promotion you feel you earned. Maybe you just realized the company isn’t good enough for you, but you stick around until you find another “job.” Perhaps you resent your peers and think they’re incompetent.
Rings a bell?
These are examples of a victim mindset. No one starts a job wanting to be a victim, but unfortunately, many become one. The rise of victimhood culture in recent years makes this persona the most common one you’ll encounter at work. If accountability is poor or nonexistent in your culture, you will likely run into plenty of victims because unaccountable people love drama, and drama loves company.
As I said, we’ve all been there. It’s normal to feel angry or annoyed when slighted or disrespected. It’s called being human. It’s what you do after you’ve experienced anger and annoyance that determines whether or not you’re a victim.
Anger is a normal and healthy emotion that alerts us that something needs to be addressed–conversations need to happen, expectations need to be set, or actions need to be taken. Anger is good if you keep it in check and let go of it quickly.
Resentment, on the other hand, is when anger festers. It’s a sign that a needed conversation never happened, expectations remain misaligned, or a necessary action was never taken. Unresolved friction is a breeding ground for resentment, and resentment is a breeding ground for victimhood.
Accountable people address their negative emotions swiftly (and swiftly being the operative word here.) Unaccountable people let their emotions fester.
Are you a victim?
A good way to answer this question is to evaluate your resentment toward the company, a team, or a colleague. If you feel a trace of resentment, that means you’re a victim or on your way to becoming one.
If you identify with that statement, you must identify what unresolved conflicts keep you in this state of being. Find out what it is and address it. Where is this resentment coming from? Ask for feedback from the people you trust. They will help you see a clearer picture.
Once you’ve identified what it is you need to address, devise a plan to address it. Have that hard conversation with a colleague and clearly articulate your expectations. Set the boundaries you’ve been skirting around once and for all. Whatever it is. Get to it.
Actions express priorities. If you don’t act to remove yourself from the victimhood cycle, you’re actively choosing to stay in it. You have to be accountable for letting go of the built-up resentment within you. No one likes a victim. Not even victims like victims. You want to shake this persona off asap.
Here are two excellent reads for anyone struggling with victimhood and wanting a good place to start: The Obstacle is The Way and Maybe it’s You.
How to work with victims?
Dealing with victims is a delicate matter. It’s important to empathize with their pain. Victims are hurt, and acknowledging that is critical and is the right thing to do.
As a next step, I’d ask them to focus on what they can control: their thoughts, attitude, imagination, words, and actions. I’d ask them to think through the following questions: What can you do that’s within your control to address this issue? How are you going to think about it differently? What words you’re going to use to set expectations? What actions are needed to put you back in control? etc
Coaching is an effective way to help people step out of the negative cycle of victimhood and back to authoring their own destiny. Sometimes, the resentment has metastasized beyond help, in which case a different environment altogether might be the right answer.
Whatever you do, do not become an enabler. Don’t forget: misery loves company. Support, coach, but don’t get drawn into the drama.
#2 The Bully
We’re not talking about schoolyard or physical bullying here. Physical violence should never be tolerated and must be reported asap.
Both bullies and victims have one thing in common: resentment. Victims resent when they perceive an injustice has occurred. Bullies resent when they believe that colleagues standing in their way aren’t as bright or as talented as they are. The brilliant jerk is a perfect example of a bully.
Ambition and passion are wonderful things to have, and are traits of many successful people in every field. Ambitious people tend to get things done, move mountains, and inspire others, but sometimes they get blinded by impatience, unreasonable expectations, and unbridled ego, all of which lead to bitter resentment.
When assertive, ambitious people are plagued with resentment, you get a bully. Unlike victims who are consumed with self-pity, bullies lash out with indignation.
Are you a bully?
Some bullies are self-aware of how they come across at work, but most aren’t. If you’re not sure if you’re perceived as a bully at work, ask yourself the following questions:
Are you easily frustrated by the shortcomings of others?
Do you interrupt people often (a sign of impatience)?
Do you like to give blunt feedback to colleagues in public?
Do you often think you’re surrounded by idiots at work?
Do you sometimes dismiss the feedback you receive from colleagues?
Do you get frustrated when people don’t see what you see?
If you answer yes to any of the above, then you are a bully. It’s important to note that although rank and seniority may exacerbate the bullying, they’re not a requirement for being a bully. There are plenty of bright, ambitious junior people that are bullies (e.g. brilliant jerks) who use their talent as leverage to justify their bad behavior.
Don’t fret. There’s a way out of this. First, you need to read Ego is The Enemy by Ryan Holiday. It’s a must-read for all ambitious, driven people, especially those with a chip on their shoulder. Then, find someone at work to be your accountability partner. You won’t go from a bully to a self-aware humble team player overnight, so having someone hold a mirror up to you as you go through this journey is essential.
Lastly, you should proactively seek candid feedback from your teams, peers, and managers. This will be painful to hear, but the only way out is through. You need to hear it, process it, and act upon it.
You can do this!
How to work with bullies?
As a first step, you need to give them the benefit of the doubt. Many people that come across as bullies actually have good intentions but their style and approach, which they may not be aware of, are sending out the wrong message.
Try having a hard conversation with that person. Make it a CLEAR (concise, logical, explicit, actionable, and real-time) conversation. It’s important to learn the art of having hard conversations to be able to set boundaries and align on expectations, so make sure you invest some time on that. Kim Scott’s Radical Candor is a great place to start.
If feedback and hard, CLEAR conversations don’t work, escalate. Make sure you let them know you’ll escalate if you don’t see a change in behavior. Being clear and firm with respect and empathy is the best policy.
“Clear is kind, unclear is unkind.” — Brené Brown
For managers and executives, it’s important to have a “no brilliant jerk” rule as part of how you live your culture to protect your company from the deleterious effects of this persona. Unfortunately, that’s easier said than done.
Many companies tolerate brilliant jerks because they tend to drive results in the short term. Not many companies are concerned about the long — term effects of toxic personas.
Most bullies get away with bad behavior, but it does catch up with them eventually. The energy you put out comes back to you ten folds. Remember that.
#3 The Author
Price’s Law states that 50% of the result created in any organization is driven by the square root of the total group in that organization. That’s closely related to The Pareto Principle, which states that 80% of an outcome is driven by 20% of the effort (see below.)
Authors are the ones driving results. They’re the 200 people in a 1000-people company. While authors are busy driving the business forward, victims and bullies are busy shooting the breeze in the bottomless pit of drama.
Competence is linear, but incompetence is exponential.
“If you want something done, ask a busy person to do it. The more things you do, the more you can do.” — Lucille Ball
This is the persona you want to show up to work in. Authors tend to stay out of the drama triangle and focus on manifesting results for the company. They tend to focus on outcomes, coaching, mentoring, and teamwork. By their nature, authors don’t engage in gossip (not too much, anyway) and are too busy to feel sorry for themselves or lash out at their peers.
Are you an Author?
When you’re in a state of flow, you’re an author. Otherwise, you‘re spending your time being a victim or a bully. Authors tend to have a humble confidence about them that is infectious. I have had the pleasure of working with lots of authors who have shown me what it means to be one: humble, having a growth mindset, assuming they’re wrong, open to feedback, and always ready to roll up their sleeves and work.
Authors aren’t necessarily the smartest people in the room, but they’re the ones who are always asking, “How do we move forward from here?” and actually lead that effort and make it happen.
How to work with Authors?
Learn from them. Ask them to mentor you. Authors love to coach and pay it forward. Spend more time with them and around them and less time with the drama crew.
Similar to bullies, authors have high expectations of their colleagues and of themselves. Unlike bullies, however, authors will put in the work to coach and mentor others to elevate them to their level. So seek out the authors in your company. People with a proven track record of getting things done while exhibiting humility.
Be leery of the “talkers” who speak much of their past glories and all the stuff they’re going to do but never get any of it done. Those are victims in authors’ clothing.
If you’re a manager of authors, make sure you recognize them and continue challenging them. They thrive on being challenged to learn and grow. Promote and exemplify them internally. Let everyone know that that’s the behavior you expect of yourself and everyone else in your company.
We’ve all been victims, bullies, and authors at one point or another in our careers. Sometimes we go in and out of these personas multiple times a day! The question is not what persona you were yesterday or a month ago, it’s what persona you consistently show up in for your team, peers, and managers.
See, we all have a choice in how we show up to work. Do we choose to show up diminished without agency the way many victims do? Do we choose to diminish others the way bullies do? Or do we choose to elevate others the way authors do? Do we choose action or complacency? Helplessness or control? Growth or stagnation? Accountability or deflection? Courage or cowardice?
Every day, there’s a choice to be made. What will yours be?
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.