By Marjorie A. Gordon-DeLee (November 28, 2018)
We now live in a world of bullies in the school system, in our communities, and in the workplace. They are simply everywhere. However, there is a way to manage the bullies in your workplace by a process of elimination. Research on a vast amount of literature on bullying has led this examination to an enormous collection of articles inspected on workplace bullies.
For instance, in a research paper published by Zeka (2018), the author has provided some interesting material on the subject of Workplace Bullying.
The Workplace Bullying Institute (WBI, 2014) conducted a survey exploring the phenomenon of bullying in the United States. Of those surveyed, 37% or 36.8 million U.S. employees have been directly impacted by bullying, while 65.6 million workers said they were affected by bullying in the workplace, either directly, indirectly, or vicariously (WBI, 2014). This attitude of workplace bullying caused an increase from 21 to 28.7 million workers over the past two decades, but until recently the topic was rarely discussed or researched (Namie, 2014). The increase in workplace bullying causes significant concerns for employees and organizations, mostly victims and individuals who witness bullying (Carden & Boyd, 2013; Pilch & Turska, 2015).
Bullying is an act, physical or verbal, which can hurt or psychologically isolate an individual in the workplace (Laharnar, Perrin, Hanson, Anger, & Glass, 2015). Namie (2014) defined workplace bullying as repeated abusive and physical mistreatment with or without violence. Workplace bullying has the potential to affect employees across departments adversely and the entire corporation (Hurley, Hutchinson, Bradbury, & Browne, 2016). The perceived effects of workplace bullying of employees occur within the organization, and present organizational issues (Cleary, Walter, Andrew, & Jackson, 2013; Pilch & Turska, 2015). Changes in corporate culture need to empower leaders and other individuals to reduce workplace bullying (An & Kang, 2015; Pilch & Turska, 2015).
Ultimately, this is what the world has come to. There are so many people who have become disconnected from the action of practicing humanism that they lack in any sort of empathy or compassion for another human being. Generally speaking, people have become heartless souls and existing for the mere purpose of satisfying they’re own selfish needs and pleasures in life with absolutely no consideration at all for the person whom they are hurting. These heartless individuals thrive on making another person’s life as miserable as possible because they are miserable.
We have employees on the job that will actually display disrespect and bullishness to their supervisors, coworkers, organization customers, and some may go as far as disrespecting their CEOs (of course they will be gone shortly thereafter). Many of these bullies believe that they are unmovable from these organizations because of their positions. If they have years of tenure or in a leadership role, some bullies believe that they have the right to do anything that they so please to do.
I personally was bullied myself, not too long ago by a supervisor who thought that because of her position and the fact that she had been on her exact same job for almost 40 years, that she could treat people any type of way that she wanted to. Well, I had to stand my ground because I was not going to allow her to bully me, I was not the one. When a person is threatened by your education, skills, and abilities, they will make every attempt to diminish your experiences and degrade you as an individual.
I worked there in this particular establishment in 2015 for a period of four (4) months. During that probationary period, my supervisor did every evil act that she could do to diminish my education, knowledge, skills, and abilities in an effort to fire me at the end of the probationary period, as she was successful in accomplishing. I knew what her plan was, confronted her after 19 days on the job. However, she was not willing to be a team player and compromise, she only became worse in her bullish attacks toward me. But it was not going to stop me from protecting my best interest and the many years of success I achieved in gaining an education and in the workforce. Allowing her to ruin my reputation was not going to happen.
Because she had been so successful in terrorizing many other employees in this exact same position that I held during my period of employment there, other employees throughout the organization and clients as well, she was under the impression that she could do the same to me without being confronted.
I reported the harassment and the unfair treatment to the organization leaders and they did absolutely nothing about it to help in solving the problem of this hostile work environment that had actually been going on for many years with other employees as mentioned above. This supervisor was allowed to do so by leadership, which is horrible to say.
Margaret Jacoby (2017) shared some statistic on the percentage of bosses who were found to be bullies in the quote below:
“bullied workers were asked how the employer handled the situation. The majority of bullies were found to be bosses or supervisors and 72% of those surveyed felt their employer rationalized or even encouraged a culture of bullying or denied it even existed. In those cases, it is impossible for employees to feel safe or have any confidence or ability to be productive and happy in their jobs (Jacob, 2017).
Therefore, it is fair to say that the solution to solving the problem of bullying in these organizations should begin at the very top of the organization chart.
In the quote below, excerpt from an article written by Comaford (2016), the author states that:
“The reality is that the leadership team is responsible. Bullying cannot happen without approval (“oh that’s just how xx is!”). It’s up to you to create an environment that is safe and healthy for the entire team—the Smart State. The biggest problem with bullies is usually that someone higher up likes them - “oh xx is great at a party!” - or some other nonsense.”
Also, here is another explanation from an article that likewise suggests that leadership holds the key to solving the problem of bullying in the workforce:
“You can’t tolerate corporate bullies”
When I asked Greg Taylor, co-founder of Toronto-based Steam Whistle Brewery, how they created such a great culture, he said he’s learned that you cannot have a great culture if you tolerate “corporate bullies.” Through experience, he found the downward pull of the bullies will silence all but the most strong-willed and assertive “bearers of positivity.” The rest quickly learn it’s not worth speaking up if it means being psychologically beat up by an emotional thug.
Years ago, I remember a famous visionary CEO saying at a conference that one of the best things his company ever did to boost morale was to fire a number of employees. After getting the audience’s attention with that remark, he went on to share how they realized that a small percentage of the workforce was chronically unhappy and spreading negativity. Nothing the company did seemed to make them happy.
Leadership finally decided to have courageous conversations with these people.
They basically said:
It seems like you’re not happy here, no matter what we’ve tried to do. Maybe it’s best for all concerned if you work somewhere else that meets your needs in a way that we clearly have not been able to.”
Because they had the courage to have the conversation, they reaped the benefit of no longer having the emotional downward pull of continual negativity, cynicism, and bullying behavior (Lee, 2015).
Thus, it does appear that leadership must be held accountable for their refusal to correct the problem and continuation in encouraging the hostile bullish culture by turning the other way as if it does not exist.
References
Comaford,C. (2016). 75% of workers are affected by bullying—Here’s what to do about it. Forbes. Retrieved on November 28, 2018 from https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinecomaford/2016/08/27/the-enormous-toll-workplace-bullying-takes-on-your-bottom-line/#1bed4b1c5595
Jacoby, M. (2017). 8 Steps to take to stop bullying in your workplace. Retrieved on November 28, 2018 from https://www.huffingtonpost.com/margaret-jacoby/8-steps-to-take-to-stop-b_b_12630016.html
Lee, D. (2015). How Bullies and Barbarians Can Ruin Your Workplace Culture. Retrieved November 28, 2018 from https://www.tlnt.com/how-bullies-and-barbarians-can-ruin-your-workplace-culture/
Newman, S. (2015). 3 Types of parents who get bullied by their own children and some expert advice on stopping the cycle. Psychology Today. Retrieved on November 28, 2018 from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/singletons/201509/3-types-parents-who-get-bullied-their-own-children
Watertown Unified School District (2015). Board of Education Policy. Retrieved on November 28, 2018 from https://www.watertown.k12.wi.us/cms_files/resources/5362%20Anti-Bullying%20Respect%20and%20Relationships.pdf
Zeka, L. (2018). Organizational Culture and Individuals' Experience of Workplace Bullying. Retrieved November 28, 2018 from https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=5979&context=dissertations
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