Passive aggressiveness is insidious and it has little respect for your thoughts on it. People are often passive-aggressive because they don’t have the necessary people skills to work through relational challenges head-on (I’ve been guilty of this). Is it your job to teach them the people skills? No. So how can you deal with passive-aggressive people?

Below are five ways I think you can win over the hurt of passive aggression:

• Find out what value underlies the aggression (for example, maybe the aggression is present because the person feels things are unfair, etc.)

• Address the person one-on-one instead of in a group setting

• Have compassion for the “why” of their feelings

• Don’t apologize for things you didn’t do

• Create accountability around their behavior

I hope this helps…

Jeff