How To Deal With Jealousy At Work?
Many times at our workplace, we come across people who are difficult to deal with. A jealous coworker is one such type. No matter how hard you try, such a colleague will always have a problem with you and probably spoil your professional life as well. Dealing with jealousy at work and such a coworker needs a lot of patience and lateral thinking. Take these tips and handle jealousy at work in the best possible way.
1. You are important
See the brighter side of having to deal with jealousy. It means you are really something! Your success is attention grabbing and your jealous coworkers want to be in your shoes. Thinking on these lines may help you deal with the whole matter in an easier manner.
2. Build a relationship
Once you find out that a colleague is jealous of you, take some steps to know the person better. Try to take him/her for a coffee. Give him/her a chance to see the real you. Maybe once you make him/her your friend, the jealousy will no more be there. Plain face-to-face talking is sometimes the best solution. Provide opportunities to the person during normal working hours to see that you are really a nice person and that your professional success has not turned you into a ‘pompous-I-know-it-all’ woman.
3. Take action
Mostly, jealousy cannot do much harm to your career. All your jealous coworkers can possibly do is pass sarcastic comments or throw angry glances at you. You can easily ignore these. But if they attempt to do real damage to your career or your professional image, you need to take some action. It could be an escalation to the manager or a simple face-to-face talk with such coworkers to clear things up.
4. Keep your manager/boss informed
Yes, this is important. Do not just go and say that some colleague is jealous of you. Instead put the whole scene in such a way that your manager/boss sees that the coworker does have some problem with you. This is to ensure that in future if things get complicated, your manager/boss can support you in the hour of need. Of course prior to taking this step, it is extremely important to have all the correct facts at hand and an easygoing cordial relationship with your manager/boss.
