When I first started working in 1989, I was in an office with some ex-consultants. One of the terms they used frequently was the idea of ‘confronting’ which seemed to mean ‘healthy’ debates which sometimes spilled over into shouting matches. It didn’t happen very often, but it seemed to clear the air.
Ten years later I worked for a senior executive at HSBC who was respected (ie.feared) by the UK branches because he has a reputation for straight talk and wasn’t afraid to shout if he wasn’t happy. As a result if I wanted anything done, all I had to do was pick up the phone to an area office and mention his name and I had the area manager calling me back in seconds.
These days things are different. I don’t remember when I first heard the term ‘passive aggression’ but I believe its become the prevailing culture in western society to the point where it almost seems unprofessional to behave in any other way.
I’m pretty sure everyone is familiar with passive aggression but if not, its defined as when you express negative feelings indirectly instead of openly talking about them. More than that, if someone asks you if you’re feeling bad about something directly, passive aggressive people deny that anything’s wrong.
So to call a spade a spade, for me passive aggression is cowardice of the worst kind. Some call it ‘political’ but that gives it far too much credence. There’s nothing smart about passive aggression. Its what people do who don’t have what it takes to own the way they feel and then do something about it. I would call it a guerilla tactic, but that makes it sound too cool but like terrorism, passive aggression rots a culture from the inside, because it robs people of the skills they need to identify their feelings in the workplace and then do something about them by talking them through with the object of their frustration.
So the next time you see it or hear someone described as passive aggression, please be kind enough to give them a good slap from me.