All of us have been manipulated and have manipulated others. It’s human nature to seek advantage and to use that advantage to get someone to do what you want them to do, whether they want to do it or not.

But “manipulative” is almost always used as a derogatory term. And being exposed as a manipulator can render you a social pariah.

So, should the teaching profession model an avoidance of manipulative behaviour?

Replay the past few months in your mind and, at a macro level, you will recognise that there has certainly been a degree of manipulation by the government to get teachers to do what they want them to.

But you are also likely to recall some excellent examples of micro-manipulation in your everyday interactions with colleagues - from them to you and you to them.

At one end of the spectrum, manipulation is about flattery, and social and emotional pressure: a teacher is reluctant to do something and a head of department “cajoles” them into it.

In some instances, this can open up opportunities for that teacher and give them the nudge they need, so manipulation is not always a bad thing, particularly where the lines between it and encouragement are blurred. However, this form of manipulation can also lead to overwork and stress.

At the other end of the spectrum, things are more obviously damaging: manipulation can become sinister and insidious, involving harsher tactics, such as intimidation, threats or emotional blackmail.

Clearly, then, attempting to model an avoidance of manipulation as a social or management tactic is desirable, but it’s not always easy to see that you are being manipulated until much later. We are poor at recognising lies and the ramifications of any incident can take time to unravel.

Challenging it, as a result, is difficult. So, how do teachers know if they are being manipulated and what can they do about it?

The ‘dark triad’

“The telltale signs you are being manipulated are someone not saying directly what they want, or whenever someone gets a feeling they [the manipulator] are being particularly ungenuine and overly friendly when they haven’t previously had a friendly relationship,” says Ricardo Twumasi, a lecturer in organisational psychiatry and psychology at King’s College London.

Another sure sign is when you have a feeling in your gut that someone is lying to you. One common deception such people will use is to say they “have spoken to someone more senior”, he adds. “That’s a common tactic of manipulators.”

Twumasi believes that single instances of these kinds of interaction should not necessarily raise a red flag, though. What you need to be aware of, he says, are patterns of behaviour that conform to the “dark triad” personality traits: Machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy. Research suggests that these traits make people more likely to use unreasonable behaviour to coerce other people into doing things.

A 2009 paper defined Machiavellianism as “a tendency to distrust others, a willingness to engage in amoral manipulation, a desire to accumulate status for oneself and a desire to maintain interpersonal control”. Narcissism, meanwhile, is characterised by self-aggrandisement and a sense of superiority, but research shows that narcissists also “have a propensity for engaging in exploitative acts or behaviours”. And people with a high degree of psychopathy are individuals who lack empathy and show little or no remorse.

But when we are talking about these personality traits, “we have to remember they are on a continuum, so everyone has elements of these”, warns Twumasi.

In other words, your boss may have done something lacking in empathy but that doesn’t make him a psychopathic serial killer. Conversely, that seemingly innocent librarian may be capable of great feats of manipulation and deceit.

So, let’s say that, over the course of a few months, you notice a pattern of behaviour from a colleague that suggests a master manipulator is at work.

What do you do next? Twumasi does not have any easy solutions. His first option is to be brave enough to have “difficult conversations” with the potential manipulator, confronting them about your concerns.

“Difficult conversations take away the manipulator’s number one tool, and [that] is ‘if I put social pressure on you to do a thing, it’s socially too awkward for you to say no to me, it’s easier to say yes’,” he explains.

If that doesn’t work, then you may need some support from HR or your union. At that point, you may need to “sense check” the accusation with others, Twumasi advises.

“If the person is not willing to take criticism or show empathy, that’s when you might want to speak to other colleagues or involve someone else in a meeting with that person,” he says. “You can then get more of a group view about whether this person’s behaviour is acceptable in your organisation.”

It’s at this point that we must raise a subject that has so far gone unspoken: what if the manipulation keeping you up at night is not coming from a colleague but from a student?

Clearly, schools would want to clamp down on manipulation on the part of pupils as much as modelling an avoidance of manipulation among teachers. So, what can be done?

Manipulation by a student can actually be a good thing in some contexts, says US psychologist Carl Pickhardt. He explains that, on the simplest level, a student manipulating their teacher’s basic needs to be in control, effective and liked can be positive for both parties and should even be encouraged. “The student learns that, by giving the teacher these [interactions], the student can get a lot of positive treatment in return,” he says. “It’s a win-win relationship. Call this manipulation if you like, or strategy.”

But there is a more sinister side to student manipulation of teachers, Pickhardt says. In his 1978 paper, “How students make teachers afraid” - the contents of which still ring true 43 years later - he explains how students exploit teachers’ fears to their advantage. He writes that, when teachers’ three basic needs are not met, they can “transform” into fears of inadequacy.

Students, he writes, are “irresistibly drawn to asserting interpersonal power as part of their social development” while striving for personal independence. If they sense fear in a teacher or parent, he writes, “the child moves quickly to exploit this opening for power”.

‘Fear games’

What follows, says Pickhardt, is that the pupil indulges in “fear games” that are not generally about terrorising the teacher but are rather designed to play on their fear and shift the balance of power in the student’s favour. These could include anything from adopting poor posture to inappropriate facial expressions, invading the teacher’s personal space or inappropriate levels of eye contact.

He writes: “These games, by their nature, are manipulative and the use of these particular manipulations is not limited to students or to schools.”

So, how do you reset the relationship with a manipulative student? The best solution, Pickhardt suggests, is a one-to-one meeting with the pupil, where the teacher points out that they seem to be having a hard time getting along with one another.

The teacher can ask: “Are there some ways of my acting and speaking that make the relationship uncomfortable or difficult for you? I would like to know because maybe I can make some changes on my side to help us get along better.”

Pickhardt says: “Start the conversation talking about changes you might make for the student and then see if that opens up the willingness of the student to talk about what she or he might do for you.

Is it harder to handle a manipulative student or a manipulative colleague? Is one group better at manipulating than the other? Pickhardt says there is only one answer to that: “Hands down, the child/adolescent is more practised. Why? Because of the positional power difference between the adult’s superior authority and the subordinate child.

“Manipulation is how you get bigger [and] more powerful people to do what you want, or maybe not do what you don’t want.”

Irena Barker is a freelance journalist

This article originally appeared in the 22 January 2021 issue under the headline “Tes focus on...Manipulation”