Backstabbers are found everywhere. Almost every circle of friends has one, every workplace has one and unfortunately, every family has one as well. People or humans are social beings and naturally they will talk and interact with each other. When that occurs, gossiping will happen and subsequently almost every person will disclose something that will make them vulnerable to backstabbing.
Backstabbing is a very poorly defined word. It has a proper definition but in reality it has very vague implications. When is it that someone backstabs or someone gets backstabbed? Letting out a harmless remark or humorous gossip is certainly not backstabbing because there is no malicious intent but if the same action leads to serious consequences then it becomes backstabbing and the person disclosing the remark or making the gossip public is the backstabber.
Clear distinctions need to be made between backstabbers and people with a big mouth. Some people cannot keep a secret, they will talk and more often than frequent, they will end up disclosing details of conversations that were otherwise meant to be a secret or between the participating individuals. If such people talk, it doesn’t necessarily mean they are backstabbers. It is their nature to fail at keeping a secret.
The reason why such distinctions are to be made is to understand what backstabbing really is and who the backstabbers actually are. Identifying people as backstabbers, wrongly, is certainly not desirable. At the same time, not identifying the real backstabbers is also not desirable.
Steps to Handling Backstabbers
Once, you know who the backstabbers are and how you are being backstabbed, it is important you take the following steps.
1. First, you must avoid all kinds of informal or private discussions with the person. If you have been backstabbed once and the person has apologized or made it clear that it was not done intentionally, then you can take cautious approaches and still open up to the person over time but else, you should never give them another chance to backstab you. Better still, you must not make any comments or remarks that can be used by someone to backstab you. This is really hard to accomplish since people will talk about others and you will have to confide in someone. That someone can become a backstabber someday which will get you back to the beginning of dealing with backstabbers.
2. Second, you must always confront a backstabber. It is never right to ignore them. You may decide to endure the consequences and allow the backstabbers to become strangers but not before you have confronted them. It is not acceptable to backstab and you must make that person realize that what he or she had done was not right. If that person doesn’t care, you should know that you had made a mistake in reading people and trusted the wrong person. Not only would this lesson help you in dealing with backstabbers in the future but you would be a better judge of human character and not make the mistake of trusting the wrong person again.
3. Third, you must always guard yourself against backstabbing. There are many forms of backstabbing. Not always is what you said or did used against you, intentionally or unintentionally. Often, your approach or attempts may be sabotaged. There may be schemes at play to cause you harm or to prevent you from doing something or achieving something. You must keep your eyes and ears open and should be proactive in identifying such moves. You should be able to gauge if there is something fishy. Preempting the moves of backstabbers is a very difficult job but if you succeed in it, then it is going to be much better than trying to deal with the backstabbing later and then trying to salvage the fallout or aftermath.
4. You must try and maintain good or cordial relationships with everyone, at least with those that matter. At your workplace, you must maintain good equations with everyone, particularly those sitting at positions of power. In a circle of friends or social networks, you must try and be good to all. Such an approach will not prevent backstabbing but it will certainly lessen the impact or dilute the severity of the consequence. If you are in the bad books of your employer and someone backstabs you with the information that you lied on certain days about the cause of your leaves, then you may end up getting fired. But if you have a good relationship with the employer or if you are a trusted employee, then even some more serious allegations or backstabbing attempts may not have any flinching impact.
5. Finally, you should yourself not indulge in any backstabbing as that is an almost certain way to pave the path for being backstabbed in the future.