It's a subtle technique often employed slowly and artfully.

If you are constantly second guessing yourself while interacting with your boss.

If you constantly doubt and ask yourself, "Am I good enough?"

If any conversation with them leaves you feeling confused and insecure about what to do next.

Chances are that your boss is gaslighting you.

Gaslighting at work happens when you work for a boss who is clearly toxic.

A type of manager which doesn't want you to succeed.

These managers will do anything to prevent you from being successful at your job.

Their goal is to control you to make you leave or even to get you fired.

This is why they start gaslighting you.

I'm Marat from Emmotion.

And after years of experience in corporate HR, I would like to share with you six signs to identify a gaslighting boss.

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Research shows that nearly 30% of bosses may be mildly or highly toxic.

And those bosses that gaslight and manipulate are very toxic.

Gaslighting tactics are employed to confuse and to frustrate you,

to constantly make you feel on the edge of your seat, to damage your reputation and to discredit you in the eyes of your co-workers and other managers.

You will not be allowed to have any ideas, thoughts or actions different from theirs. If you do, you will be punished,

through this constant psychological game which they employ to destroy your confidence and self-esteem.

Here are the most frequent signs that your boss is gaslighting you.

The sign number one is whatever happens, it is always your fault.

This is one of the major reasons why gaslighting isn't easily detectable.

Your gaslighting manager is good at manipulation.

They will make you feel that everything is your fault.

This is why gaslighting is underreported in the workplace because you become convinced that you don't do things well, that you are not good enough, that you might deserve this treatment you are getting, which couldn't be more wrong.

Many times we hear people justifying their bad experience with statements like "all managers are hard to please," or "nobody likes their boss."

But there is a big difference between a tough manager and a toxic gaslighter.

Gaslighters will go out of their way to make you doubt yourself and your self-esteem.

No matter what happens, they will bend reality to make their version of events the only true one.

This is how they end up convincing you that you are wrong, that you are confused and misinformed and you don't know what you are talking about.

The next sign is when your boss uses phrases like, "don't take it so personally," or "don't be so sensitive," and similar.

While "don't take it so personally" might sound innocent enough, it's a serious red flag phrase.

It's a classic phrase used by gaslighters to assert control and spread self-doubt.

And while said to us, sometimes we might really feel guilty because we feel we have overreacted.

When you react to something insulting or cruel that your boss said or done, they criticize you for taking things personally.

This way, they don't have to take accountability for what they have done.

The issue is that the more someone tells you that you are being over-sensitive, the more you start to think that they may have a point.

And simultaneously, the more you start doubting yourself, and that of course, is exactly what the gas lighter wants.

Regardless of how justified someone thinks your reaction is, it is your reaction.

It is not up to your boss or anyone else to tell you how you should feel or how legitimate those feelings are.

Saying something offensive is never the right way to provide constructive feedback.

What the gaslighter is doing in all these cases is invalidating your experience.

And this way, you keep feeling insecure, you keep questioning your reality,

and eventually, you will reach to a point where your self-confidence at work is completely destroyed and you no longer have or trust your criteria.

The next sign is when they deny saying or doing something, which is clearly a lie and sometimes, you even have a proof of that.

"I did not say that."

Since gaslighters want you to question your reality, you might hear this often.

And sometimes it will just drive you crazy because you clearly remember that conversation or you might even have an email where this was discussed and confirmed.

But they will tell you one thing and then they will deny it. That is their strategy.

Sometimes they will also withhold important information from you, so you wouldn't be able to complete your work the right way.

Your boss tells you one thing on Monday and the exact opposite on Tuesday.

And then you have no idea what you should believe.

You simply don't know, and that's the point.

If you are confused, then you are easier for them to control.

All of this is being done to you to get you to the point where you don't know what to think.

And eventually, you might end up concluding, "Maybe he didn't even say it, then maybe I'm wrong."

Sign number four, when they compare you to other employees.

Gaslighters use the comparison as a wedge between people.

"Why can't you produce it like David? He comes in at 8 a.m. every day. If he can do it, why can't you?"

Or "Maria is doing such an excellent job. Why can't you be as good as Maria?"

Ok. One thing is putting someone as an example to encourage other employees in the workplace and to motivate them, but something completely different is when you are compared to someone to make you feel lesser.

That's clearly gaslighting and gaslighters enjoy bringing you down.

They know that the comparison is the thief of joy and it will immediately lower your spirits.

When you have areas that need improvement, normally your boss have a private conversation with you.

During this conversation, they either motivate you to go forward and give you helpful advice or if you have been given many chances before, then they just let you go.

But making you feel incompetent, making you feel not good enough by comparing you to other colleagues is never a solution.

So it's clearly being done with cruel intentions.

And the next sign is quite connected; when they play favorites.

Look out for those bosses which openly show favoritism to certain members of the team.

And a lot of times these team members are not top performers at all.

You know, my ex-boss, the one who inspired my Toxic Boss video series, he actually brought on board, one of his close friends to work with us and to report directly to him.

And needless to say that this person was getting a completely different treatment from the rest.

Being promoted twice in a matter of just a couple of months.

Sometimes they would disappear together for lunch or they would hang out outside of work during work hours, which is clearly something that a professional manager never does.

You might think how is favoritism related to gaslighting, it's closely related because no matter how much effort, no matter how many working hours and ideas you have put into your job, it won't be recognized at all.

Instead, you will be made to feel inferior to this golden child or to this colleague in your boss's eyes.

And of course, you can't ever bring up anything related to favoritism.

Your boss will simply make sure that you come across as someone insecure and resentful towards your colleague.

And the ultimate sign is when you are eventually scared of your boss.

You should never be scared of your boss.

You should never be on the edge of your seat, wondering what are they going to do next.

You should never be unable to communicate with your boss.

That's what they get paid for; to build a productive environment where everyone is comfortable to work at where you can voice a concern about work without worrying of being ridiculed or belittled in front of everyone.

If you are afraid of your boss, that's because they are gaslighters and of course, they clearly have no leadership skills.

Some other ways of manipulation could also include spreading gossip about you to damage your reputation,

changing project guidelines, adding extra work to increase your chances for a failure,

invading your privacy, listening to your conversations, monitoring your location within the office and watching who you speak to.

They will also take credit for your work while telling you that they changed everything in your original idea, so it's no longer yours.

Sometimes they can openly criticize your original idea.

They will tell you that it is never going to work and then suddenly, they would implement it as their own later on.

Does all of this ring a bell?

If it does, then your boss is a toxic gaslighter and it's in your best interest keeping your communications straightforward.

Stick to emails where everything is clear and based on facts, only set boundaries and don't get dragged into any drama.

The less emotion you show, the better.

You need to start trusting your gut again.

Nobody knows better how you should feel or how you should act.

My personal advice would also be not confronting a gaslighting boss.

Although there are experts that recommend you doing so, from my personal experience, gaslighting bosses would never tolerate you confronting them.

And their aggression would become much worse and it's often their word against yours which makes it difficult to prove.

So going to upper management or to HR is very risky.

Chances are that you are manipulative boss or they cover their tracks with their boss, so you will be the one to blame.

You should check out my video on how to deal with a toxic boss through the card above.

In a perfect world, you wouldn't need to put up with any gaslighting.

You could just pack up and go.

But in our economically challenged world, not everyone has a financial freedom to just leave without having another opportunity lined up.

However, remember, the longer you stay, the longer it takes for you to recover.

Thanks for staying with me until the end.

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