Comments on: Are You Being Passive-Aggressive?

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[…] Passive Aggressive Behaviour–great articlefrom Crucial Learning Blog […]

By: Steve W.

Steve W. — Sat, 15 Oct 2016 05:59:30 +0000

Thanks for you comments and examples. I love to hear how these things play out in your organizations and personal lives. Glad to know this has helped you to think about these patterns.

By: Brannon Burton

Brannon Burton — Thu, 13 Oct 2016 23:15:48 +0000

I had an employee deliberately mess up new hire paper work because he knew I would take the brunt of the correction. It got to the point that my job was in jeopardy. Passive aggressive behavior can be extremely violent when executed with extreme aggression.

By: Bobbie Pepper-Penn

Bobbie Pepper-Penn — Thu, 13 Oct 2016 12:09:35 +0000

Good article. I have a better understanding of passive/aggressive in conversations

By: Dave Colpo

Dave Colpo — Wed, 12 Oct 2016 21:46:29 +0000

I’m sure it’s semantics but I don’t understand the term passive-aggressive. As a very young man a mentor described the following scenario. A lioness is lying in the grass calmly watching a herd of zebras. She’s not moving, seems relaxed … passive, right? But as soon as one of the zebras strays a bit too far from the herd she’s up like a shot chasing it down. Passive? Heck no, she was just patiently biding her time to maximize her chances of success. She was aggressive the entire time.

Using silence to buy time, not tip your and at the attack that is building is aggressive. Even the description in your 2nd paragraph of jumping back and forth from silence (resting lioness) to violence (attacking lion) is the same.

Sarcasm, gossip – nothing passive at all. Sarcasm is bad enough. Following up with the dig about not being able to take a joke just rubs salt int he wound in the attempt to make the object of the sarcasm the problem. There wouldn’t be a problem if you weren’t so sensitive.

Sandra’s comment above (Passive-aggressiveness drives me far more crazy than plain old aggressiveness) is spot on. At least aggressive people who don’t hide behind pseudo-passivism are being honest about it.

By: Peter Eastman

Peter Eastman — Wed, 12 Oct 2016 15:36:56 +0000

Interestingly, I have seen passive aggression used to an unusual extreme.
I once witnessed a coworker (who was overwhelmed by a situation) slam down some books near a fellow worker. The fellow worker turned to a third coworker and said, “Tell him he can’t do that to me.”
As you can guess, the situation overwhelmed coworker nearly lost it over that comment, the third coworker felt made responsible for the initial behavior, and the fellow coworker, when asked about that, didn’t understand the reaction – “I never even spoke to him.”
I had quite of bit of coaching:
* Attending to the emotional state of others was important part of that person’s job
* Although the first coworker was out of line, setting someone up to fail was not one of our values
* A more helpful response might have been – ‘You look really upset – what’s up?” which probably would have resulted in an immediate apology, a coworker who regained their own control, and nobody in trouble.

By: Gayl Bowser

Gayl Bowser — Wed, 12 Oct 2016 15:16:58 +0000

That last sentence really got me. “As soon as we recognize that we aren’t in dialogue….”

That is the phrase I will hold on to and ask myself all the time. Simple, I know, but just what I needed

By: Sandra Shill

Sandra Shill — Wed, 12 Oct 2016 14:35:07 +0000

Good article! Passive-aggressiveness drives me far more crazy than plain old aggressiveness (even if it’s negative), and, at work, it comes in more forms than just sarcasm and gossip. For example, there’s sabotage — someone doesn’t like a person or an idea that a person has but, instead of talking to them about it (or sharing their thoughts with the group during a meeting about that idea), they find ways to quietly sabotage the implementation of the idea.