How to Deal with a Passive Aggressive Coworker

Passive aggression works partly because it is hard to prove. The person rarely says anything overtly hostile, so when you try to describe what is happening, it can sound thin — even to you.

The behaviour tends to show up as patterns rather than single incidents: a tone that is always slightly clipped, credit that is consistently not given, questions in meetings that are framed as curiosity but land as challenges. Individually, each moment feels minor. Collectively, they wear you down.

The denial is built into the dynamic. If you raise it, the other person can genuinely claim — sometimes sincerely — that you have misread them. That possibility of misreading is what keeps many people quiet.

None of this means you are imagining it. It means the conversation you need to have requires more precision than most difficult conversations do. Vague framing gives a passive aggressive person exactly the ambiguity they need to deflect.

The biggest mistake people make is leading with the label. Saying 'you are being passive aggressive' immediately puts the other person on the defensive and shifts the conversation to whether the label fits, rather than what actually happened.

Instead, describe the specific observable moment. Not 'you always undermine me in meetings' but 'in today's stand-up, when I shared the timeline, you said 'if that's what you think will work' — that landed as a dig, and I want to understand if something is off between us.'

That framing does three things. It anchors the conversation in something real. It names your experience rather than their intention, which is harder to dispute. And it opens a door — 'is something off between us' — rather than just making an accusation.

You are not required to prove intent. You experienced something. That is enough to name.

This is the part most people have not prepared for, and it is where conversations unravel. The most common responses you will get are denial ('I was just being honest'), minimising ('you are reading way too much into this'), or reversal ('actually I've been the one feeling undermined').

Each of those responses is designed — consciously or not — to make you feel unreasonable for raising it. If you are not ready for them, you will either capitulate and apologise for bringing it up, or you will escalate and say something you regret.

The key is to hold your position without matching their energy. Something like: 'I hear that you did not intend it that way, and I am still telling you how it landed for me. Those two things can both be true.' You are not arguing about their intent. You are simply not dropping your experience.

Silence is also a tool. If they turn it around and start listing grievances, you can say: 'I am willing to talk about that separately. Right now I want to stay with what I brought up.' That is not dismissive — it is focused.

Practising these responses out loud before the conversation makes a significant difference. It is one thing to know the right words in theory. It is another to say them steadily when someone is looking at you and shaking their head.

A direct conversation is usually the right first step, especially if this is an otherwise functional relationship that has soured. Going to a manager before you have spoken to the person yourself can damage trust and often escalates things faster than needed.

That said, direct conversation is not always appropriate or safe. If the person is significantly senior to you and the dynamic involves power, if prior conversations have not changed anything, or if the behaviour is affecting your work in ways that are visible to others, involving your manager or HR is reasonable.

If you do involve someone else, document specific incidents before that conversation — dates, what was said, who was present. The same precision that helps in a direct conversation helps when you are describing a pattern to a third party.

Some working relationships cannot be fully repaired. Your goal does not have to be warmth. A workable professional relationship — civil, clear, functional — is a legitimate outcome.