Listen to your gut: It's a red flag if a work friend starts to make you feel uncomfortable.
on the topic, she detailed an example from her interviews: When a manager reprimanded his friend for overlooking an aircraft safety action on his checklist, the friend took the feedback personally. “He said, ‘Well ... you’re supposed to be my best friend.’ And I said, ‘This has nothing to do with friendship,’” the supervisor recalled.Unsurprisingly, Sias’ paper revealed that the work friendship ultimately imploded after the stress and anger in this exchange.
“If you think, ‘This person is toxic, however, this person is tied into everything’ ... if you feel there is no lever [you] could pull that won’t lead back to them in some way, now you have a systemic problem, and it’s time to think about where you want to work next,” Ranger said.Good friendships are buit on mutual trust, and toxic friendships are built on feeling like you always have to watch your back around the other person..
The company you keep at work says a lot about your values, whether you intend it to or not. Bad vibes are contagious: Research hasYou don’t want to stay friends with someone who is making you into someone you did not used to be, because it can ultimately start to damage your reputation, too. Jennifer Tardy, a diversity and inclusion consultant, sees this dynamic as guilt by association.
“It’s not this turning point where all of a sudden we absolutely hate this person. It’s a sense of ambivalence,” she said. “If there is a piece of us that still cares about them or can’t really figure out how to reconcile this ambivalence, it takes up more of our mental energy.”In these cases, Methot suggests paying attention to whether you feel excited to talk and learn from this person or whether your interactions tire you out.