How To Work With Difficult People with Amy Gallo
Amy Gallo - Contributing Editor at Harvard Business Review, Author and Podcast Host
Amy Gallo is a workplace expert who writes and speaks about effective communication, interpersonal dynamics, gender, difficult conversations, and feedback. She is the best-selling author of Getting Along: How to Work with Anyone (Even Difficult People) and the HBR Guide to Dealing with Conflict, as well as hundreds of articles for Harvard Business Review.
Working with difficult people can be one of the most challenging things we all face at one point or another in our career.
So how do we navigate difficult people in a way that’s productive and maintains our own sanity? We explore just this with workplace conflict expert Amy Gallo.
In this podcast episode we unpack the 8 Archetypes of difficult people at work from Amy’s brilliant book ‘Getting Along: How to Work with Anyone (Even Difficult People)’ published by Harvard Business Press. In particular, we explore how to deal with passive aggressive people and victim mentality in ourselves and those around us.
We explore how we’re becoming more conflict adverse in our workplace relationships, and beyond, and how we can actually hold space for healthy conflict in our workplace teams and relationships.
This episode is for anyone who has to work closely with others—let’s face it, that’s all of us!
Learn more about Amy Gallo:
For the past five years, Amy has co-hosted HBR’s popular Women at Work podcast, which examines the struggles and successes of women in the workplace. She is frequently sought out by media outlets for her perspective on workplace dynamics, conflict, and difficult conversations. Her advice has been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, and Marketplace, as well as on NPR, WNYC, the BBC, and ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation).
Amy is an acclaimed speaker, who has delivered keynotes and workshops at hundreds of companies and conferences, including SXSW (Featured Speaker), the Conferences for Women, the World Economic Forum, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Google, Adobe, and the American Chambers of Commerce in Finland and Sweden. In 2019, she delivered a talk at TEDxBroadway about the positive benefits of conflict.
Her writing and thinking has garnered several awards. She is on the Thinkers50 Radar List, was shortlisted for the Thinkers50 Talent award, and was named a LinkedIn Top Voice in Gender Equity. The Harvard Business Review Guide video series, which Amy stars in, was honored by the Webby Awards in 2023, and the five-episode Women at Work podcast series based on her book won the 2023 Digiday Media Award for Best Podcast.
Amy is frequently sought out by media outlets for her perspective on workplace dynamics, conflict, and difficult conversations. Her advice has been featured in The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post (The Lily), Fast Company, and Marketplace. She has been a guest on numerous podcasts and radio shows including Ten Percent Happier, HBR’s Ideacast, Hello Monday, WNYC, the BBC, and ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation).
Find more about Amy Gallo including where to get her book here.
Episode Transcript:
[00:00:00] Alexis Zahner: Welcome to We Are Human Leaders. I'm Alexa Zarner and together with Sally Clark today, we have an extra special episode for you live in person.
[00:00:20] Sally Clarke: That's right, Lex. And what a guest. We've been fans of her work for a long time and her research on workplace conflict has long informed what we do at Human Leaders.
[00:00:30] Sally Clarke: Her book, Getting Along, is How to work with anyone, even difficult people, it has become a guiding light for dealing with challenging colleagues and bosses in the workplace and honestly, in relationships beyond.
[00:00:43] Alexis Zahner: Today's conversation is with none other than Amy Gallo, bestselling author and contributor to the Harvard Business Review and co host of the Harvard Business Review podcast, Women at Work.
[00:00:55] Alexis Zahner: Amy joins us here live in Sydney while she's in the country for a live Keynote address at the South by Southwest festival.
[00:01:04] Sally Clarke: Amy is widely regarded as a guru on workplace conflict and her expertise has supported thousands of organizations around the world to create healthy workplace cultures through navigating conflict effectively.
[00:01:16] Sally Clarke: In today's conversation with Amy, we take a deep dive into her recent book, Getting Along, to explore those difficult interpersonal situations at work, how we can successfully navigate those challenging relationships.
[00:01:29] Alexis Zahner: Now, as the saying goes, you should never meet your heroes, but my gosh, us, Sally and I so grateful for the opportunity to sit down with Amy today, her wisdom and her graciousness in this conversation was second to none.
[00:01:43] Alexis Zahner: And we are so excited for you to hear this conversation. So let's dive in. Amy, welcome to We Are Human Leaders. It is a pleasure to sit down with you today. Um, and as we like to begin all of our conversations on the podcast is just, um, about getting to know you a little bit more and the journey that has brought you to this important work that you're doing now.
[00:02:05] Amy Gallo: Is this a four hour podcast? Yeah. I'll tell you my whole life story. Um, well, as an expert on conflict, I like to joke that the origins of I started with my divorced parents, um, but the reality is they didn't have a very contentious divorce at all. And, um, and I just think I was always interested in human interaction, even from a really young age.
[00:02:25] Amy Gallo: I loved to sit back and observe and see, and I actually loved uncomfortable situations. I always found movies where people were cringing or squirming interesting and, but I had no idea that I could do anything with that observation. I just thought it was a. Personality trait. So I actually started my career in non profits.
[00:02:45] Amy Gallo: I worked for HIV prevention organizations. I then, in a complete 180 degree switch in my career, became a management consultant. It's a long story how that happened, um, but I, as a, being a management consultant, sitting in these meetings with clients, doing projects, I, that's when I was like that love of observing people came back.
[00:03:08] Alexis Zahner: And
[00:03:08] Amy Gallo: I really saw how. The success or failure of a project depended on whether people got along. And so I, um, ended up starting to write about this topic, about interpersonal interactions at work. I published a few things in HBR that led to, and Harvard Business Review that led to, uh, some, some additional work with them and that led to writing two books about conflict at work.
[00:03:36] Amy Gallo: That's why I'm here.
[00:03:38] Sally Clarke: Thanks so much for that, Amy. I love that you were kind of, even as, uh, as a youngster sort of leaning into the conflict and sort of what is it about these tension in these challenging moments that sort of brings out a deeper humanity is it's super interesting questions and sort of.
[00:03:53] Sally Clarke: Makes me wonder as well, you know, I think often in the sphere of work, we focus on tasks. We, we really focus on, okay, this is what we need to do. This is how we need to do it. Why do relationships at work even
[00:04:05] Amy Gallo: matter? Oh, thank you for asking that question. Cause I can't tell you, I actually did a workshop.
[00:04:10] Amy Gallo: Um, several years ago with a, it was a governmental organization in the U S and I was talking about conflict and trust and relationships at work. And this guy sat in the back with his arms crossed the whole time. And when it was time for the Q and a part, he like thrust his hand up immediately. And he said, why are you talking about trust?
[00:04:30] Amy Gallo: Doesn't trust doesn't matter. We're here to do your job. If you do your job, you'll get it done. And I had to politely say, well, Decades and decades of research disagree with you. So, you know, the reason relationships matter is that we see. In really almost every piece of research about relationships at work, that they enhance our productivity, our creativity, uh, they make us happier, more engaged, and this is not necessarily, like, we're best friends, we hang out after work, this is just caring about one another's success, being invested in, in, in one another, asking polite questions, not being rude to one another, it has such a huge impact.
[00:05:11] Amy Gallo: One of my favorite pieces of research on this. I talk about it in, in getting along is, uh, a group of researchers at Rutgers University in the U S found that people who said they had a best friend at work had higher performance ratings. So I don't know how you would need any more evidence to show it actually impacts how we perform at work.
[00:05:31] Amy Gallo: So, and. The opposite is true to Christine Porath, uh, who's a professor, um, at University of North Carolina, studies a lot about incivility at work. So rudeness at work. And I quote her a lot in the book as well. And she shows the exact opposite, right? In, in organizations where relationships are fractured, where people are rude to each other.
[00:05:51] Amy Gallo: All of those same things, creativity, productivity, engagement, suffer. And so I think we often like to think that relationships are a nice to have. Like, oh, I love my work. I'm engaged. It matters. We're a successful company. Oh, and I also happen to like my coworkers. It's like, well, actually all of those things you just listed are probably because you like your coworkers.
[00:06:12] Amy Gallo: So they really, really matter.
[00:06:15] Alexis Zahner: Yeah, and it seems like almost such a controllable, you know, who we are in the workplace and how we relate to other people is something that's so within our control. And it baffles me that one would want to go to work and not enjoy being in an atmosphere and, and building interpersonal relationships that are also rewarding while we're doing rewarding work.
[00:06:32] Alexis Zahner: But obviously it happens, right?
[00:06:34] Amy Gallo: Of course. And. I'll actually push back a little because it is in our control in that the mindset of like, I want to get along, I'm going to bring my best self, I'm going to give people the benefit of doubt, all of those things. And then sometimes other people don't agree.
[00:06:48] Amy Gallo: And that part is really out of our control. Yeah. And so, Um, but, but I think you're, what you're pointing to is something really important, which is this desire to connect with people is sometimes missing because we think it's just work. It's not personal. I have my friends. I have my family. I have my community.
[00:07:05] Amy Gallo: I don't need that. friends here. Yep. And that's just a huge
[00:07:10] Sally Clarke: mistake.
[00:07:11] Amy Gallo: I
[00:07:11] Sally Clarke: hate to go a little off topic here, but I also feel like, you know, for people who are entering their working lives during the pandemic, who may have sort of entered their first roles in a remote environment that it would have perhaps felt.
[00:07:23] Sally Clarke: quite an isolating situation and almost, you know, how do I go about forming these relationships when I'm not actually physically in person with my, with my colleagues and so navigating that will, uh, I think we'll explore remote and hybrid a little later in the conversation, but these different dynamics, uh, also impact to the extent to which we start to feel connected to one another too.
[00:07:41] Sally Clarke: Yeah,
[00:07:41] Amy Gallo: absolutely. And for most people, the workplace is the most diverse in terms of age, race, gender, usually. Place they've been, right? Yeah, we, the communities we grew up in tend to be pretty homogeneous. This, you know, I'm the research I'm saying is really US focused. I have a feeling it's probably true in Australia, too But so you now are also and entering this space where you're having to deal with all of this difference And so you're not it's easy to assume.
[00:08:11] Amy Gallo: I don't need to connect with these people. I just need to do my job
[00:08:15] Alexis Zahner: Yeah,
[00:08:15] Amy Gallo: right. I just have a task. I want to achieve and And Again, that task will be more enjoyable, will go better, will yield better results, all of that, if you actually connect with other people.
[00:08:28] Alexis Zahner: Absolutely. And jumping back, Amy, to this idea of the controllables in the workplace, something we can't control, but something that almost all of us grapple with at some point in our career is difficult people that we have to deal with, whether they're on our team, whether they're leaders of a team, um, colleagues in the workplace.
[00:08:44] Alexis Zahner: This is something that We all deal with and your, uh, one of your latest books, getting along, how to work with anyone, including difficult people talks about this, um, and eight archetypes. And we'd love to dive into this a little bit more. And Sally and I have spent quite a lot of time reading and digesting your book.
[00:09:01] Alexis Zahner: And there was two archetypes in particular that really stood out to us. Oh, I'm so curious. Both personally, because I think we recognize a little bit of ourselves in each, um, but also for different reasons, but we'd. kind of had to deal with these people. Um, so one of my choices of archetypes that I really wanted to pick your brain on today was the victim archetype in particular.
[00:09:23] Alexis Zahner: Um, I'm so glad you picked that one.
[00:09:25] Amy Gallo: And partly because it's not actually people, when people ask to talk about different archetypes, that's not one that people gravitate toward much. Yeah. But anyway, tell me why it was interesting to you. Well, for
[00:09:34] Alexis Zahner: me personally, it was interesting because I feel like Sally and I were talking about this this morning.
[00:09:39] Alexis Zahner: In different contexts, interestingly, I actually noticed myself slip into this archetype a little bit, um, which is, I'm not proud of, but I've also had to manage, um, employees who, who get, who've been really stuck in the victim archetype, and I have felt in my experience, basically at a complete Loss of, of, of how to get them out of that, how to motivate them, how to get them to feel a sense of agency and, and all the things we need from an employee.
[00:10:06] Alexis Zahner: So I'd love to know from you, Amy, can you help us unpack the traits of a victim archetype and, and, and how we go about navigating the relationship with someone who's in that sort of mentality?
[00:10:16] Amy Gallo: Yeah. I, I, it's interesting that you. Have had to manage people with that archetype and you also find yourself veering into it.
[00:10:25] Amy Gallo: And I think that's yeah, that's not a coincidence I think we often have the hardest time managing people who portray the traits. We're not happy with in our cells
[00:10:34] Alexis Zahner: and
[00:10:35] Amy Gallo: so And and it's partly because we think I I Or, I, I, the psychology of it is, I spend so much time and energy managing this in myself, can't you just keep it together too, please?
[00:10:48] Amy Gallo: Yeah. Right?
[00:10:49] Amy Gallo: Can't relate. Yeah. It's
[00:10:50] Amy Gallo: just like, I know how terrible that is, and please just stop doing it. Exactly. Um, so to, to talk about the archetype, A little bit. The, the victim is, it comes out in the book right after the chapter about the pessimist and that's intentional because the pessimist is someone who thinks terrible things are going to happen all the time.
[00:11:07] Amy Gallo: No exceptions. And the victim is someone who thinks that too, but it's all going to happen to them. Right. And the real, one of the key differences between sort of what we call average pessimism, because who among us, there's lots of, you know. When you open up any new site, you have lots of reasons to be pessimistic, right?
[00:11:26] Amy Gallo: Yeah. Um, but the difference between sort of everyday pessimism and more, I wouldn't say pathological because these aren't psychological archetypes, but more problematic pessimism or victimhood is the lack of agency. So not only are things going to go wrong and they're going to go wrong to me, but there's nothing I can do about it.
[00:11:46] Amy Gallo: Yep. And so, and that's the part when you're, it sort of feels like a, a bottomless pit, right? Because you keep feeding compliments or, um, you know, ideas or suggestions and it just keeps falling to this. Nope. Can't do anything. Sorry. Yeah. And it's sort of intentional because if you don't have to take responsibility, you don't have to be accountable for what happens in the end.
[00:12:09] Amy Gallo: Yeah. As with all the archetypes, I really think that's important. What's at the core of them is fear, right? It's a fear of failure, a fear of not being seen, um, especially with, with the victim. You know, I do have to make a little caveat that sometimes people are truly a victim. In fact, they're the object of microaggressions, microaggressions or sexual harassment or gender bias or racial bias, but the difference is it's just really, they're just stuck in that, in that mentality.
[00:12:37] Amy Gallo: Yeah. Thank you. So I think on the, it can start with all of the archetypes, but especially with the victim of understanding they're not trying to make your life miserable. They're not trying to, um, create extra work for you. Like they're not just intentionally being a jerk.
[00:12:53] Alexis Zahner: Um,
[00:12:54] Amy Gallo: it's hard to believe that when you're interacting with them because you're like, what?
[00:13:00] Amy Gallo: Like you like most people aren't doing this. Stop doing it. Um, But I think what can then once you have a little bit of empathy, really focusing on that agency piece, finding something even small that they feel like they have control over can, can really help. Yeah. Um, and, and just trying to restore that, even, with thought exercises.
[00:13:23] Amy Gallo: Like if they say, well, you know, the, the, this project's going to fail. There's nothing I can do about it. And I know all the fingers are going to point at me because I always get blamed. Right. So you say, okay, if you were in charge of this, like if you were the CEO, if you were the head of this organization, how would you handle this?
[00:13:37] Amy Gallo: Yeah. Like, and I know, I know you feel like you don't have any control. Let's just imagine you had tons of control. What would you do? Yeah. Right. And then. You know, they'll, they'll probably protest a little bit like, Oh, I don't have control. I'll never have control. Like I've never, you know, and that's fine, but like trying to just get them to latch onto just a little bit of that, find one thing, say, you know, you can actually do that now.
[00:14:00] Amy Gallo: I'll protect you. Like I'll protect you from the consequences as your colleague, as your boss, let's just do a little experiment and see what happens if you, if you take this action. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:14:09] Sally Clarke: I love that so much about so many, or all of the archetypes really, Amy, is this understanding Where someone is coming from that.
[00:14:16] Sally Clarke: I think all of the archetypes in the right, you know, the book really helps us to access is this understanding that it's not malintentioned. It's not something that they're doing to us as leaders either, that it is really something that is coming from either a place of fear or some sort of self protection mechanism.
[00:14:32] Sally Clarke: And that's such an important way of framing it so that we can get past that sort of perhaps instinctive, uh, reaction and start to hold space for what that person in that situation needs. And that's such a great example. I think.
[00:14:44] Alexis Zahner: Well, I know for me as, as the victim and also managing the victim, it was almost like a mitigating my fear in advance.
[00:14:50] Alexis Zahner: It was like, if I push back, then I won't look like the failure. If I feel overwhelmed, then I feel like a, the loss of agency because there's too many overwhelming factors. Victim was just a, an easy place for me to sit. And to your point, Sally, on empathy, it did make it then easier when I was managing someone like that to understand the motivation a little bit more, Amy.
[00:15:12] Alexis Zahner: And your book does a brilliant job of, of helping kind of peel back those layers so we can, Get to the root cause. Yeah. Sometimes for the problem for people.
[00:15:20] Amy Gallo: Yeah. And it getting to the root cause is like, is complex. It is. And I have, it's funny to put a book down the world and be like, I'm not sure I believe it, but you do
[00:15:28] Amy Gallo: Like there are things about it that I have hesitation about. Like one is. Requiring you, who's having to suffer because of this person, to do a lot of empathy and perspective taking.
[00:15:39] Sally Clarke: I think also when you feel like you've often been the adult in the room early in life, that that kind of, when that role comes up again, you're like, Oh, really?
[00:15:47] Sally Clarke: Yeah, exactly. Thanks mom
[00:15:49] Amy Gallo: and dad. Here I go again. Right. Yeah. And I do. And I, I, I think I. I'm not sure I do it clearly enough in the book. I try to do it in interviews and, and my talks now, which is like, you have a choice. I'm not telling you, you have to be empathetic. It will help you. Like it will
[00:16:05] Amy Gallo: help you
[00:16:06] Amy Gallo: if you, if your goal is ultimately to get along, manage this person better, reduce the amount of unhealthy conflict, it will help, but it's a choice.
[00:16:15] Amy Gallo: And so you really have to decide. I think the other misgiving I have is like, I have all this. You know, here's what might be going on, but I don't want people to like play arm, armchair psychologist and like go up to their victim colleague and be like, I know, I know what your parents were like. Yeah. I got you.
[00:16:30] Amy Gallo: You know, like you don't want to do it. So I think, yes, I want people to be empathetic. I want them to think about what, what might be motivating this person and then take productive action.
[00:16:44] Sally Clarke: And I think that's where the leadership. comes into it. To me, that's a real act of a leader when you can discern between, okay, having that understanding, how does that empower me to take helpful behavior in this moment?
[00:16:54] Sally Clarke: Because it's not my job to solve this person's psychological history. It's not my job to, to necessarily to change their entire experience of what they're doing, but really to help them in this moment, to do what they need to do, to, to feel more connected to the project and to understand that. A bit of a different perspective in terms of what they can control and where their agency lies.
[00:17:12] Sally Clarke: And I think for me, that's a real, that's a really beautiful, sort of very specific leadership quality that we can bring.
[00:17:18] Amy Gallo: Yeah. I like that lens on it. I, oftentimes with my writing or my work, are you, are you both fans of The Office, the TV show? I hear that, I hear they're creating an Australian one. I'm so excited.
[00:17:29] Amy Gallo: So it's going to be, I think it might be the best one, but yeah, the, um, I think I, I have something I call the Michael Scott test when I write or give advice, which is like, if Michael Scott read this, what would he do? And, and I do fear sometimes like he would be like, do the exact wrong thing. And so I think that's right.
[00:17:48] Amy Gallo: That's the leadership lens when you're, you, you take that and, and. When, when you say leadership lens, I'm assuming you also don't mean someone you directly manage necessarily. It could be a colleague. Totally. It could be your boss, right? Like being a leader is, is using your best judgment, um, doing that perspective taking and then discerning between, I am your psychologist or therapist or whatever, and actually just Action.
[00:18:15] Sally Clarke: Yeah. Amazing. I love you just elucidated that so perfectly. Oh, no, I definitely related to the, the victim archetype myself, but there's another one that I'm sure you probably do get this one more frequently and it is the passive aggressive type.
[00:18:29] Alexis Zahner: And
[00:18:30] Sally Clarke: you know, according to your research, the passive aggressive peers tend to be the most common archetype in the workplace.
[00:18:36] Sally Clarke: I'd love to know, you know, before we Spending hours telling my own story of my passive aggressive history, and Lex has one too. Why is this the case? Why is it the most common? And what are perhaps some tips for us to be able to deal with our peers who are showing those passive aggressive tendencies?
[00:18:53] Amy Gallo: Yeah, this was the first chapter I wrote of the book. It's the question, whenever I give a talk about difficult people, even conflict at work, I can guarantee that The first, second, or third question in the Q& A is going to be, how do I deal with a passive aggressive colleague? It's, it is so common, and unfortunately, it's just also so hard to deal with.
[00:19:12] Amy Gallo: Um, again, the origins are often fear, anxiety, uh, there's some sense that people act passive aggressively because they have something called rejection sensitivity, so they're afraid of being rejected. So if I don't actually have an opinion, if I don't actually stick to an idea, if I don't follow through on anything, then you can't.
[00:19:31] Amy Gallo: You know, accuse me of being wrong. Like, I don't, you won't be, you won't reject me. And I think part of the reason it's becoming even more increasingly common is that we're seeing, and I, there's not research yet on this, but I think, I see it anecdotally, I have a feeling the research is coming, is that we are just becoming more and more conflict averse in workplaces.
[00:19:52] Amy Gallo: Um, and, um, There are lots of reasons why that is. I think one of the, one of the main reasons is that the portrayal of conflict, especially in like, political settings like the U. S., but everywhere, the portrayal of conflict is so negative that we've, we've come to associate saying, I don't, I don't agree with you as saying, I hate you, I'm never going to speak to you again, our friendship's over, or
[00:20:17] Sally Clarke: like, yeah.
[00:20:18] Sally Clarke: And conversely, if someone says that to me, I'm rejected, I have no value, I don't matter anymore. Right.
[00:20:24] Amy Gallo: Yeah. Right. And we've, we've become so wedded with our ideologies, with our ideas, that we can't stop separate the fact like, you know, Sally doesn't like my idea doesn't mean Sally doesn't like me as a person.
[00:20:37] Amy Gallo: So I think that's created this rise in passive aggression. There's also, you know, there's probably something to do with the fact that we're raising awareness about being more sensitive in the workplace about, um, not committing microaggressions. So people are also afraid of saying wrong things. So then we try not to say anything, which is not what we're saying.
[00:20:55] Amy Gallo: Right. So, and so I think that's led to this. to this real lots and lots of people, people who probably wouldn't normally be passive aggressive adapting that, that behavior. I mean, I can probably name five times in the last week. I've acted passive aggressively. Like it's just,
[00:21:13] Alexis Zahner: it happens. Well, I was reading the chapter out to my partner and the first thing he said was, Oh, that's you.
[00:21:19] Alexis Zahner: So I think, yeah, I definitely relate to that. Um, and he's not
[00:21:22] Amy Gallo: afraid of conflict.
[00:21:24] Alexis Zahner: He's very overt about it. So, yeah. One interesting, um, reference in your book as well, Amy, was to, um, Patrick Lencioni's work around artificial harmony. And for me, this really rang true in the passive aggressive piece as well around that, that conflict avoidance.
[00:21:39] Alexis Zahner: We'd rather hide it just beneath the surface and have the appearance of harmony in the workplace and actually deal with that conflict. Can you tell us what's, what's some of the fallout that we can expect when we, when we go, or we opt for these passive aggressive. Behaviors and create that kind of environment.
[00:21:57] Alexis Zahner: Yeah. I mean,
[00:21:58] Amy Gallo: Oh gosh. Again, do we have four hours? Cause this is a topic I'm so passionate about because if you think about it, we, we have a bias toward. Um, action. So we, when we think about the risks of something at work or in life, we think about the risks of taking action. What if I say something? What if I push back?
[00:22:16] Amy Gallo: What if I disagree? We do not think about the risks of inaction. What if I stay silent? What if I don't call attention to this? And so we think the easier route is to stay silent, but that artificial harmony and behaving passive aggressively. Like. You're not going to be seen as a full human. People aren't going to understand you and all of your thinking and ideas.
[00:22:37] Amy Gallo: They're going to lose out on any, um, you know, innovations or perspectives or insights you might have. You are going to feel more disconnected, right? All of the things we were talking about earlier that are positives of relationships because you don't have that connection. Connection with people because you're not being authentic.
[00:22:55] Amy Gallo: You're not being genuine. You're not going to get any of that. And so, I mean, it's, uh, I can't remember who it is, but someone I interviewed for the book told me, I think it was, um, uh, it might've been Gabe Adams, but it said no one goes home from work and was like, is like, you know, I was so passive aggressive today and is proud of it.
[00:23:16] Amy Gallo: Like they might say, Oh, I was petty or I don't feel comfortable being myself. Like. They're going to, they might recognize they're not being totally direct and upfront, but they're not, no one's taking pride in this behavior, not known, but very few people are taking pride in this behavior. So it's something that just sort of, I think, comes up.
[00:23:37] Amy Gallo: And then the artificial harmony, I mean, if you think about teams, like if there's a unspoken ideas. There's insights that don't get expressed. There's, um, simmering resentments, like that is a big one, right? Like just festering all of this disagreement that doesn't get voiced. It's, it's so corrosive to a team and it erodes what we know is so important to team psychological safety.
[00:24:03] Amy Gallo: And so it's, it's, and yet, as I said, it's one of the hardest behaviors, I think, to actually. you know, it, it, to address. Yeah. Um,
[00:24:14] Sally Clarke: yeah. It's interesting, isn't it? Cause I think there is a lot of talk about, we've talked with Amy Edmondson on the podcast previously around psychological safety. And I just feel like there is this incongruence between consistent passive aggressive behavior and, and a culture of psychological safety.
[00:24:29] Sally Clarke: So it really is to some extent, you know, Becoming aware. And I get, I can almost feel this physical cringe in myself when I think about that tendency that I have that I'm still working on to not, to, to let go of that passive aggressive behavior because of, as you spoke to sometimes a fear of the, of the conflict and thinking if I just don't say something, I avoid that immediate discomfort, but there are consequences as we know.
[00:24:52] Sally Clarke: Now, I would love to hear from you, Amy, when we're thinking about. you know, for ourselves as leaders in our own sort of self leadership process, what can we do to start to become more aware of our own archetypes and sort of really, because I think that is an important component of this work, right? To really sort of start with ourselves.
[00:25:13] Sally Clarke: What would you advise?
[00:25:14] Amy Gallo: Oh, that question breaks my heart a little because it's a great question, but because the book, the original version of the book, which was way too long, had sections in each archetype of what if this is you? So what if you recognize that this is what can you do? My editor probably rightly so said we got to get rid of it.
[00:25:33] Amy Gallo: Can you make a separate book? We will read it. Yes. We actually sort of had this conversation when the book was too long, the manuscript was too long, so we had to cut something, but then also I, it's, I, I think now we are wrong, but we had this conversation of Are, do people really have the self-awareness, right?
[00:25:52] Amy Gallo: Like, do you know,
[00:25:53] Alexis Zahner: it's a tough one, isn't it? Like
[00:25:55] Amy Gallo: it's, yeah. But like the first week the book came out, I got dozens of emails and messages from people saying, I read your book. I'm chapter four. Yeah, I read your book. I am chapter, you know, and I was like, uhoh, like we didn't actually help the people and, and people really like to use it as a self-diagnostic tool, which I'm like, great.
[00:26:15] Amy Gallo: Like increase that awareness. So. And yeah, there are lots of people who do not have the self awareness, and I think, I think what I would say is that if you have an inkling, like if you start hearing, if you even hear the term passive aggressive, or victim, or insecure boss, and you're like, oh, that might be me, um, Find someone who you trust to give you honest feedback, especially if you are in a position of any sort of power.
[00:26:41] Amy Gallo: Don't think you can just go to someone and say, Oh, you know, Alexis, do you think I'm in, you know, act like this insecure boss? You're, if you have a position of power, then no,
[00:26:50] Alexis Zahner: no,
[00:26:51] Amy Gallo: no. You're amazing. You know, I thought that about my previous boss, but not you. So you have to find someone you genuinely trust.
[00:27:00] Amy Gallo: Someone who you probably have a relationship with. A longstanding relationship with ideally someone who doesn't report to you because you remove that power dynamic. Although lots of bosses have done a great job, um, fostering that. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that's the key is to get some feedback about that.
[00:27:17] Amy Gallo: Um, and then I think understanding in the same way you would with someone else, understand what's motivating that. Why am I doing that? What circumstances is it? Because here's the other thing, you know, we all mentioned we had probably behaved passive aggressively this week, but you don't. So what are the circumstances where it brings it out, where you, your worst self, right?
[00:27:40] Amy Gallo: And how can you actually. What can you learn from those situations? And then I think, then I start taking sort of like my coaching, you know, um, mindset, which is, you know, first step is self awareness. So recognizing that you're doing this is, is great. Then you start experimenting. How can I get myself out of this behavior in certain circumstances?
[00:28:01] Amy Gallo: What can I try? What works? What doesn't? And then eventually with lots and lots of work, you get to mastery of life. I've, And mastery doesn't mean I never do that behavior ever again, but it's maybe the space between the trigger and the behavior is longer. Maybe, you know, maybe you don't do it in all situations.
[00:28:20] Amy Gallo: Um, so I think it's just, it's any sort of process that you would do for any type of growth, but really starting with that self awareness and accepting, I mean, Here's the thing, who, who among us does not fit into one of those archetypes? Right. Multiple of those archetypes. So normalizing that of like, I'm not a perfect leader.
[00:28:39] Amy Gallo: I'm a flawed human being. I have baggage I bring to work every day. Just accepting that. Is that I think the very first thing because we've done a disservice to folks to set leadership up as this like infallible person. Yeah, we really have. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I, there's actually this quote from Francis Ford Coppola.
[00:29:01] Amy Gallo: We have it. up at the Harvard Business Review office that says, I'm going to just paraphrase because I don't remember exactly, but it's like the things you're fired for when you're young are the things you win lifetime achievement awards for when you're older. Love that so much. It's, I love it. And I also hate it because I'm like, yes, but it, it acts as if Our flaws are what make us amazing, which is true to some degree.
[00:29:26] Amy Gallo: I don't, I have so many complicated feelings about that quote, but I do think it's this, this, we, it, it just sort of sets these, like, you will achieve greatness. I'm like, well, you know what, sometimes the things people are fired for, the things that make them fire, get fired again and again, make them like, Terrible leaders make them like, so like it's complicated.
[00:29:45] Sally Clarke: And I think what I loved about what you said, particularly, Amy, was you use the word acceptance. And I think that's the key. And I would hope that kind of is underneath what France, uh, Francis Ford Coppola was saying in that quote, it's like, when you stop running from who you are and you actually turn and accept, and that doesn't mean you just continue to behave that way, but you work on it where necessary.
[00:30:05] Sally Clarke: And you know that, yes, as you mentioned as well, it's not about a perfect relationship. You know, score a sheet, it's about that incremental improvement that starts with acceptance and, and, and awareness. I think that's a really important point for leaders to understand.
[00:30:18] Amy Gallo: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and it's, I, you know, I think about all the aspiring movie directors who are like, no, I just got.
[00:30:24] Amy Gallo: Fire. Yeah. And now I'm in HR in this, you know, you know, whatever, whatever. Like, it's just, I don't know if it's, it's, it is, I do think that you're exactly right. Sally is like, it's about acceptance. It's also all of these things, right? There's all of this, um, Wonderful thinking around how our strengths are also our weaknesses, our weaknesses are our strengths, like the double sidedness of these traits.
[00:30:48] Amy Gallo: And so, you know, yes, you might really, really be annoyed with the victim that you have to manage or the passive aggressive peer you have to interact with every day, but there's probably something in that behavior that actually is serving them
[00:31:01] Alexis Zahner: in
[00:31:01] Amy Gallo: some way and probably actually serving you. Like at the end of the day, it's a dynamic, right?
[00:31:07] Amy Gallo: And so I think we have to recognize there are. There's, there's value in some of this behavior, even if it just drives us up a wall.
[00:31:17] Alexis Zahner: And I can't help but think, Amy, that if you are asking the question, how can I prevent this in myself, or how can I grow through this experience myself, you're probably actually on the journey.
[00:31:27] Alexis Zahner: Like you have the level of introspection enough to recognize that. And I, Can't help but think some of the people that are really on the perhaps spectrum of these archetypes, the really tough people to manage, don't have an inkling of self awareness that that's the impact they're having on other people, which makes it really tough.
[00:31:42] Amy Gallo: Yeah. It's, I once got the advice, um, my, I have a teenage daughter and I, Early in her life, I'm asking someone like, how do you just, how do you know if you're a good mom? Like, what's the, what's the metric, you know, someone who's like sort of nerdy and mathy. I like, like, I want the score sheet to tell me.
[00:32:00] Amy Gallo: And, and they said, actually asking the question makes you a good mom. Yes. And I thought, I think that's probably true of leaders too. too. Like even wondering, yeah, am I a good leader? How can I be better? What am I, how am I messing this up? Right? Yeah. Those questions are at least the first step, I think, to quote unquote, great leadership.
[00:32:21] Alexis Zahner: And if we are dealing with this archetype, the passive aggressive peer, Amy, what are some quick fire tips that we can do to actually manage that person? Yeah, number one, don't call them passive aggressive. Nothing makes me angry when my
[00:32:33] Amy Gallo: I think it's important to think about the fact that it's about a fear of conflict.
[00:32:46] Amy Gallo: It's about a fear of rejection. In some ways you have to lay out the red carpet for them of like, I, I'm You know, you don't have, not in an obsequious way, not in an ungenuine way, but to make it clear you are disagreeable with, right? Like I'm okay with conflict, I'm okay with you not agreeing with me, um, I'm okay with you pushing back, I'm okay with you telling me that these are unreasonable tasks and that's why you don't follow through on them, right?
[00:33:12] Amy Gallo: You have to really, really make it clear that that's. You're open to that conversation even, because I think sometimes we create passive aggressive behavior, especially in the people we lead, if we show that we're not willing to have those tough conversations.
[00:33:26] Alexis Zahner: That just reminded me again of so many of the assumptions that we create in our relationships as well.
[00:33:31] Alexis Zahner: I distinctly remember when I was starting a new job at a senior, as a senior associate and the director that I was dealing with, he was just really great at being direct in his instructions, being very explicit. Um, And I just felt like I wasn't being heard, even though it's not that he wasn't creating the space for me to kick back.
[00:33:49] Alexis Zahner: That was just the assumption that I had was he just wants me to take the directions and go away and, and, and do what he says. Right. Um, and so I was really passive aggressive. I still recall getting instructions and, and just small things like just the tone of my voice even. Right. And I think that's one of the things you talk about in the book.
[00:34:08] Alexis Zahner: It's not It's the content of the message versus how it's delivered. And that was totally true for me, you know, I, I knew that, um, I was just feeling frustrated because I wasn't feeling like I was being valued, even though that was just a massive assumption sometimes.
[00:34:25] Amy Gallo: What was the tone of your voice? I'm curious.
[00:34:27] Alexis Zahner: I get, I don't even want to try and do it now. I get very like, that's fine. No problem. I'll, I'll have that with you. Right. Right. In five minutes time. But it's, it's, it's very detectable. Sally, you work with me. You probably have seen it from time to time. Right, right. Yeah. It's just like the shop. You know, like, there's just a, there's a tone shift that I think is really perceptible for people.
[00:34:48] Alexis Zahner: And yeah.
[00:34:49] Sally Clarke: You sense, for me, it's like I sense withdrawal in that moment. It's like, you're not in the room anymore. Something's changed and you're shutting down.
[00:34:56] Amy Gallo: Yeah. Annie McKee, who's a emotional intelligence expert calls dealing with grief. Passive aggressive people shadowboxing because it's exactly that, right?
[00:35:04] Amy Gallo: Like they disconnect. So you can't even land a punch and I don't mean land a actual land a punch. I mean, you can't connect because they're just like, I'm out. Oh, no, I'm going to say yes, but I'm out. Yeah. And so that Heidi Grant, who I interviewed for that chapter, she's a social psychologist. She talks about this idea of hypothesis testing too, which is like, You know, you have to have a pretty strong relationship to do this, although you can, you could try it out also with someone who you don't know as well.
[00:35:30] Amy Gallo: But, you know, Sally, you could say to Alexis, like, Ooh, I get the sense you just disconnected. I may be wrong here, right? You don't want to accuse, right? Like, I may be wrong. But. Do we need to, like, try this again or should we, you know, should we come back to this conversation later? So you're, you're giving them, they don't have to say, I'm so frustrated with you, please stop.
[00:35:48] Amy Gallo: Yeah. Right. They can say, yeah, like we need a different take or whatever it is. Yeah.
[00:35:54] Alexis Zahner: What, what a fuse breaker though. Cause I feel like that invitation to introspect quite often for me. It's, I'm, I'm getting that amygdala hijack and it's happening so quickly that I don't even know I've gone offline and it's not until someone says, Hey, like, is it all good?
[00:36:09] Alexis Zahner: I'm feeling like this isn't quite landing how we planned that I'm like, Oh, I've actually flipped the switch into passive aggressive. So it's a good circuit breaker. Yeah. Being welcomed back online always.
[00:36:20] Amy Gallo: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. And giving people space. I mean, I think. There's a feedback tool, I introduce it in the chapter about the, um, biased, um, colleague, which is that you describe the situation, the behavior and the impact, right?
[00:36:33] Amy Gallo: Like you interrupted me three times. That's the, or sorry, in a meeting, that's the situation behavior. You interrupted me three times, the impact, it made me feel like you didn't care about what I had to say. Whatever. I love that. Right. But I like to add another I, which is intention, which is, I know that probably wasn't your intention, right?
[00:36:50] Amy Gallo: It's just, again, to say, like, because it, The, even describing like you made, it made me feel like you didn't value my voice sounds like an accusation. Right. Yeah. It made me feel. Yeah. Exactly. And so to say, I probably wasn't your intention allows them to be like, yeah, I was just stressed or, oh, I sometimes come off like that or, you know, it gives them this out.
[00:37:10] Amy Gallo: And
[00:37:11] Sally Clarke: it also says like, I trust that you're, that wasn't like, I trust you as a, as a peasant to respect who I am as well. So it's, you know, this is, I, I would not assume that that would be your intention. I think it really gives that validation that in this relationship, I, there's, there's trust here. Yeah.
[00:37:25] Sally Clarke: It's the
[00:37:25] Amy Gallo: benefit of the doubt. Yeah. Yeah. It's ego calming, right? Like, because the ego comes in like, wait, I'm not a good leader. I'm a bad person. I'm passive aggressive. Like you start going off the rails and you just calm the ego. Exactly. Straight
[00:37:37] Alexis Zahner: into aggressive. Now, Amy, obviously Sally's touched on how the hybrid and remote sort of workforce is really.
[00:37:45] Alexis Zahner: drastically changing how we connect with one another, how we manage our relationships. Can you talk to us a little bit more about the impact you're seeing the hybrid and remote setting have on our relationships? And what are some of the things that leaders can do to ensure that our communication stays connected, um, and is mindful of, um, you know, the disconnect we might be experiencing from that?
[00:38:06] Alexis Zahner: Yeah.
[00:38:07] Amy Gallo: It's funny. And again, I haven't seen much research on this, but I'm observing that we're really worried about disconnection in the workplace with hybrid and remote work. Makes total sense. And at the same time, we connect with other people in our lives through technology all the time. Yeah. Right?
[00:38:26] Amy Gallo: Like I'm here in Australia. My teenage daughter's back in the US. We FaceTime. We text. Like, you know, it helps. We have a preexisting relationship, of course. Right? But I think we sort of, we, I, I, I'm worried we're a little overplaying the disconnection. Yeah. Again, not based on research, just sort of a theory.
[00:38:45] Amy Gallo: Um, and I think we can get, I think if we talked more about the ways that these technologies are keeping us together, in fact, the team I work most closely with at HBR was mostly Yeah. Yeah. Before the pandemic. Yep. Yep. And I wasn't because I didn't live that close to the office. So I was there occasionally, but not a ton when the pandemic happened.
[00:39:06] Amy Gallo: everything started happening on Slack, I all of a sudden felt incredibly included. And to me, I was like, Oh, I feel more connected to these people. And granted, we were going through pandemic, right? There was all these other things going on. But I think there's, there's the way it levels the playing field to some degree.
[00:39:22] Amy Gallo: And I do think we are learning how to connect. The problem is, it is It's a, a dehumanizing, it's naturally dehumanizing in that you don't have to look someone in the eye. You can just turn it off. Like, you know, you close your computer and you go have, do something else entirely. You're not picking up on body language, you're not having the mirror neurons, like all of that stuff is not happening.
[00:39:45] Amy Gallo: So yes, it is disconnecting in that way. And I think leaders really need to think about how am I not. Let's bring everyone back. No exceptions. That's a whole, I have a lot of issues with that. But how do we compensate? How do we create informal moments? I actually was speaking to someone yesterday who manages a team of six.
[00:40:09] Amy Gallo: And he says, he starts every meeting with checking in with people, chatting, and he is never the one. To return to say, okay, let's talk about work.
[00:40:17] Alexis Zahner: He says,
[00:40:17] Amy Gallo: if the whole meeting needs to be checking in, we'll let it do it. But as the leader, I'm not going to set the tone that let's get to work because, and I told him, I said, that's so smart because next time someone else will do it sooner.
[00:40:29] Amy Gallo: And that check in time will keep getting shorter and shorter because the expectation is, oh, the leader wants to start talking about work. Let's do it sooner. Um, So that's one tactic. I just, I literally heard about yesterday where I was like, I love this. Um, the other is, I think we also have to just find ways to remind one another of our humanity and whether that's checking in, you know, how's your dog, you know, how was your vacation, whatever it is, or, or even just, you know, Having cameras on when you can, um, asking people, you know, to explain the reasoning behind something, right?
[00:41:08] Amy Gallo: Like, just removing yourself from being so task oriented and trying to think about what's the relation, to go back to the very beginning of our conversation, what's the relationship aspect? Of this that, that we need, you know, I know another leader and several leaders actually who started this during the pandemic where they just, they have a randomizer.
[00:41:28] Amy Gallo: They might pull names out of a hat or whatever, where they just put people together like, okay, this week you're having coffee, virtual coffee with so and so, like just making sure people are continuing to connect in the ways they might've informally in a meeting.
[00:41:40] Sally Clarke: Thanks for reminding us, Amy, I think it's such an important reminder that it is, it is very much construed as this kind of, you know, disconnected environment now, but there are really.
[00:41:50] Sally Clarke: opportunities and, and great tips that leaders can use to kind of recreate those moments, you know, we have this relationship. Sally and
[00:41:57] Alexis Zahner: I worked together for nearly two years before we met in person. And interestingly, the most awkward thing about meeting each other for the first time was the. divulging our height to each other before we met, before we met, by the way, I'm really short, just so you know, so I love that you say that Amy, because our entire business, our podcast, everything that we do together wouldn't be possible without that.
[00:42:19] Alexis Zahner: Yeah. Um, and we've heard a lot of
[00:42:20] Sally Clarke: stories like that coming out of the
[00:42:21] Alexis Zahner: pandemic too. So I think
[00:42:22] Sally Clarke: there is a lot to be said for that. You know, the international connections that we have, that simply, they may have been there with the technology before, but we weren't using it in that way. And it's really exciting.
[00:42:30] Sally Clarke: Yeah.
[00:42:31] Amy Gallo: And I think that that's, it's just possible. I think it's, it's. And it's funny also when we talk about younger generations who are just starting out at work and they don't have the opportunity to be around their colleagues, it's like these are kids who, like, I have a nephew who has, his best friend is someone he has never met.
[00:42:46] Amy Gallo: And he's like, he's saving up his money so he can fly to California and meet his best friend. And I'm like, Are we going to deny that that's a real relationship? Yeah. Absolutely not. Yeah. And so I think we, yes, we need to find ways to compensate for the lack in this, of connection in these, in these technologies, but I think we also need to start changing the narrative that they allow us
[00:43:10] Sally Clarke: to connect.
[00:43:10] Amy Gallo: Absolutely. Yeah. Amazing.
[00:43:11] Alexis Zahner: I love that. I love that reframe.
[00:43:13] Sally Clarke: We could certainly continue this conversation for another four plus hours. It's been such a delight to have you with us on We Are Human Leaders that we'd love to finish by asking, you know, if, if a leader is going into, perhaps a new leader is going into an environment where they sense that there is perhaps a toxic culture or the relationships are not great, there's been some conflict, what would you advise to them as a sort of a starting point when they're going into that environment?
[00:43:38] Amy Gallo: Yeah, well, one, you know, going again back to the very beginning of our conversation, I think about myself as a young kid, like, observe, like, really pay attention to what is going on. It is easy to go in, especially as a leader, and expect, I have to fix this right away. Ooh, this is bad. This is, I'm, you know, I'm entering, like, a harmful situation.
[00:43:59] Amy Gallo: Um, but observe what's going on, talk to people, find out, you know, if, if there's someone outside the team who might have a perspective who can, who can share, try to get, collect information, gather insight on what's going on before you start trying to sort of mess with things. Um, and then I think, really think about psychological safety, like the, the, how do you start building and admit your own fallibility, um, don't.
[00:44:25] Amy Gallo: If people start getting into blaming one another, really try to refocus on learning. I had a great leader years ago who, who, I made a big mistake and I had to tell her, and she, I, she would have been right if she had been mad and angry and upset, but she just sort of sat there for a moment and her face did not look happy, I'll be honest, but she said, what did you learn?
[00:44:47] Amy Gallo: It was like the first question, right? So I think it just changes the tone. I was held accountable for the mistake, that's not, let's be clear, but the initial focus was what did we learn? And I think the more you can tell this team in this toxic situation, um, you know, we're focused on learning. We're all growing.
[00:45:07] Amy Gallo: We're all developing. And keep, allow, like, you cannot. Talk about the growth mindset enough because you want, you want people to believe the dynamics can change and that the people can change. And so the more you can tell stories along those lines, um, talk about your own development as a leader. Um, and then I would just say be patient.
[00:45:30] Amy Gallo: It is so hard to change a toxic culture and it's not impossible, but it's hard and takes time. So you will see two steps forward, one step back, um, you have to also really protect yourself from not getting brought into that culture because you're trying to fit in as the new leader, but don't get drawn into the toxicity.
[00:45:52] Amy Gallo: Like really make sure you're safe. Just like staying in touch with your values, how you want to be as, as a leader. Um, I'll stop there cause I could say like a million more things, but anyway, it's, it's a great question and I think something people don't think nearly enough about.
[00:46:11] Alexis Zahner: Agreed, Amy. And such profoundly empowering words there.
[00:46:16] Alexis Zahner: So we really appreciate that at Human Leaders, something that is deeply important to us is taking action from a self leadership perspective and knowing that even in your small sphere of influence, maybe you're not in a position of formal power. But you do get to have a ripple in the world through your own behavior.
[00:46:33] Alexis Zahner: So, Amy, thank you so much for being with us on We Are Human Leaders. It's been an absolute privilege to sit down with you today. I've had such a good time. The time, time
[00:46:42] Amy Gallo: went by way too fast. Yeah, it did. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you. Thank you.
[00:46:47] Sally Clarke: Thank you so much for joining us at We Are Human Leaders for this conversation with Amy.
[00:46:51] Sally Clarke: Lex, what was your key takeaway?
[00:46:53] Alexis Zahner: For me, I'd have to say it was really the piece about self leadership. Really leaning in. to understanding how we're showing up in the workplace and taking those small actions that Amy suggested to better observe our behavior and the impact it has on others. What about you, Sel?
[00:47:08] Sally Clarke: Absolutely. I think it was really sort of starting to explore those archetypes and how we can use that understanding to improve our own behavior, but also shape healthier team cultures around us. Absolutely. So you can learn more about Amy's work, uh, at the show notes and you can learn more about We Are Human Leaders at www.
[00:47:26] Sally Clarke: wearehumanleaders. com It has been such a blast to share this conversation with you Lex.
[00:47:32] Alexis Zahner: Yeah, same. I've loved it. Um, and it's been an absolute pleasure to host Amy Gallo and we are human leaders. So thank you for joining us for this conversation and we'll see you next time.