The Nature of Leadership and Career

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The Nature of Leadership and Career is a weekly newsletter where I provide 1 illustration and ~3 ideas to help you connect to your career, leadership, or work journey in a more natural way.

Today at a glance

• Community Announcement

  - August meetups - Thriving Through Career Transitions - Women’s Community

• Illustration of the week

  - Is your leader gaslighting you?

• The Nature of the Mind

  - What is gaslighting?

  - Why do people gaslight others?

• The Nature of Career

  - What can organizations do to prevent a culture of gaslighting?

  - What can you do if you're being gaslighted?

📢Community Announcement

Last month I launched Thriving through career transitions for Women** In Technology and Sustainability.

We already have had some wonderful women from all around the world join!

This is a supportive space where you can:

• find solace, guidance

• boost your confidence

• continuously expand your knowledge

• connect and a network of like-minded ladies / non-binaries who share similar experiences.

📅 August 15 will be our second roundtable.

There are two roundtables to suit EU + APAC and EU + Americas timezones.

*Non-binary individuals are also welcome. If you are from a different sector and are interested in joining, feel free to send me a message.

Illustration of the Week

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Gaslighting is a devious technique as it preys on our common Achilles heel of self-doubt.

Gaslighting is an organizational disease.

It’s under-discussed and until recently it’s been under-researched.

Not sure what gaslighting means?

Let’s demonstrate:

When I was 7, my stepbrother (11) and stepsister (8) were on a flight.

My stepbrother took the safety flight card out of the seat pocket and pointed to the takeoff and landing pictures and he asked me:

“Vaness which one is takeoff and which one is landing?”

I pointed to the airplane up picture as takeoff and the airplane down picture as landing.

“No, this one is landing (the down picture) and this one is take off (the up picture)” said my stepbrother.

“No” I replied. I repointed to take off as up and landing as down.

He insisted that the plane landing was takeoff and the plane going up was landing. He asked my stepsister and she agreed with him continuing their “joke”.

I stuck to my guns. I knew the answer.

Take off = airplane up. Landing = airplane down.

This went on back-and-forth for at least 5 minutes.

Until I started doubting myself: because a) I was getting tired and b) they were older than me and in agreement (power dynamic).

Maybe I was wrong.

Maybe the rules of aerodynamics had changed?

I finally gave in. Plane up into the sky = landing. Plane coming down = take off.

They both laughed in my face and asked me how I could be so stupid?! Take off = up and landing = down.

Apart from this wavering between a childhood joke to childhood psychological torture, it is an example of gaslighting.

Just replace the example of the airplane takeoffs and landing scenario with a workplace scenario:

🕯️You are proud of a product that you lead a cross-functional team to deliver successfully. Your manager tells you that you didn’t contribute to the main thought leadership and you don’t understand what it’s all about.

🕯️A racial or gender-based micro-aggression that other people say you are overreacting.

🕯️You tell your boss you are experiencing bullying in the workplace “Are you sure it was bullying? Bullying is a big word.”

🕯️Your boss doesn’t want to take accountability for the failure of the recent return to office program he was leading. He tells you the program failure is due to your inability to deliver outputs even though you were not part of the program team.

🕯️ Leaders, and even team members or direct reports who feel superior to you “accidentally” leave you off important meetings and then say that you were not available to support.

You likely resonate with these, and have more to add to the list.

The Nature of the Mind

What is gaslighting?

The term comes from the 1944 movie Gaslight where a husband, Gregory, convinces his wife Paula she is insane by dimming and brightening a gaslight. When she complains, he insists that she is imagining it.

Definitions of gaslighting from psychology

• Gaslighting is a form of psychological abuse inflicted upon an individual making the victim doubt his/her perceptions or capabilities. Gass and Nichols, 1988

• Gaslighting is the continual process of sowing seeds of self-doubt in the mind of a person (Fileidng-Sing and Dmoswska, 2022)

• Gaslighting is not the same as manipulation, bullying, or lying. But there are overlaps. - (Kukreja and Pandey, 2023)

Definitions of gaslighting from sociology

A type of psychological abuse aimed at making victims seem or feel “crazy” creating a “surreal” interpersonal environment. (Sweet, 2019)

Gaslighting 1:1 or 1 : many?

Gaslighting in psychology currently suggests it happens between two people.

The most recent sociology suggests that gaslighting occurs both when there is a power imbalance in a close relationship between two people and in the larger social context (Sweet, 2019).

This might sound familiar to those of you who have felt a broader “culture of gaslighting” in your organization.

Why do people gaslight others?

Psychology suggests:

• People indulging in sustained gaslighting of another have narcissistic personality disorders (Boring, 2020)

• They continually strive to attain dominance over other people.

Sociology suggests:

• “Gaslighting should be understood as rooted in social inequalities e.g. gender or race and where there is an imbalance in the power dynamic of a close relationship e.g. leader and employee.

• Gaslighting happens when the perpetrator (e.g. a leader) mobilizes stereotypes (e.g. gender or race-based) and structural and institutional inequalities against victims to manipulate their realities.” (Sweet, 2019)

What can organizations do to prevent a culture of gaslighting?

At surface level:

1. It's surprising how many people don’t know what gaslighting is. Add gaslighting to their bullying and harassment policy. Train people on what gaslighting is, and how to react if someone approaches you about being gaslighted. and in any training.

At a deeper level:

2. Help people to build their career plans, skills and provide adequate training. This is not just for leaders, it can be any relationship where there is a perceived difference in power dynamic e.g. gender or race. People who gaslight others feel inadequate or threatened, use gaslighting to make others feel inadequate.

3. Get leaders to do inner work. Damaged leaders, damage growing leaders. Our childhoods, adolescence, and early years impact us more than we like to admit. Is this the role or duty of organizations? I am still not sure.

   What is becoming evident in organizations is that the false division of personal history and professional future is breeding toxic traits. This ends up costing the organization in turnover and legal settlements.

What can you do if you're being gaslighted?

1. Understand what might be keeping you in an unhealthy relationship or environment. E.g. Has your self-worth been so eroded that you don’t feel like you can leave?

2. Speak up. Tell people you trust who have the influence to change the dynamic.

3. Plan and have a courageous conversation with the person(s) involved to hold a mirror up to the behavior. You should feel safe to do so. This may not result in the perpetrator acknowledging or apologizing for their behaviour. The research suggests they will deny it. How the courage to speak up for yourself can increase your sense of confidence or closure.

4. Find ways to anchor into a state of confidence and self-worth to counteract self-doubt. E.g. Circle of excellence exercise where the ‘resourceful state’ is confidence

5. Set your boundaries. Know your grit or quit criteria to leave abusive environments.

Finally:

In the 1944 movie Gaslight, Paula leaves her abusive husband for another relationship in which she realizes she was not crazy, and her new partner helps her back into a place of confidence and self-worth.

💡Know your worth. Know when to stay. Know when to walk away.

***

🆘If you are in an acute and distressing mental headspace due to gaslighting please reach out to your GP or mental professional.

🤝 If you need help with regaining your confidence due after being a victim of gaslighting, let’s chat. I would love to help you.

Resources used for today’s issue:

• The Sociology of Gaslighting - Sweet, 2019

• Workplace gaslighting: Conceptualization, development, and validation of a scale - Kukreja and Pandey, 2023

• Obstetric gaslighting and the denial of Mothers’ realities Fielding- Singh and Dmowska, 2023

• Implications of narcissistic personality disorder on organizational resilience - Boring, 2020

Catch up on recent issues of The Nature of Leadership + Career

• Amplify or Unravel? The 3 types of leaders shaping your leadership

• How your scarcity mindset impacts your decision making and empathy + 3 ways to override it

• 3 career X-factors that most generalists ignore

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