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The employee who seems the most compassionate and considerate member of a team is sometimes the most manipulative, warns a lawyer who is observing certain behaviours on the rise.

In much the same way the 'Wicked Witch of the West' uses flying monkeys to cause trouble in the Wizard of Oz, these employees use other workers to do their bidding.

Dentons Australia partner Paul O'Halloran tells HR Daily he was aware of narcissists using 'flying monkeys' to stir up trouble long before he came across the term, as it happens in the workplace "all the time".

"I've worked with people like this. I've certainly [worked] for clients where there is somebody who seems to deploy agents on their behalf to carry out acts of unkindness or bullying in the workplace, but keeps themselves very much out of direct culpability..."