Robyn McMaster of Brain Based Biz has posted a good resource article on workplace bullying. In Stop Abuse: Bullying in the Workplace, Robyn’s compiled the thinking of a number of professionals who’ve written on the topic, and if you’re a manager or in HR, the article is well worth your read.
I want to add a note of caution about the article’s list of behaviors that bullies may employ:
- Personal insults
- Invading one’s “personal territory”
- Uninvited physical contact
- Threats and intimidation, both verbal and nonverbal
- “Sarcastic jokes” and “teasing” used as insult delivery systems
- Withering e-mail flames
- Status slaps intended to humiliate their victims
- Public shaming or “status degradation” rituals
- Rude interruptions
- Two-faced attacks
- Dirty looks
- Treating people as if they are invisible
With the clear exception of numbers 3, 4 and 7, items on this list match behavior that is not atypical in messy conflict situations at work. They’re behaviors mediators like me work with all the time and they don’t necessarily add up to bullying.
So my word of caution is this: When you see or experience some of these behaviors, an immediate determination of “bully” warrants real caution. It may be bullying…or it may be a person whose acting less effectively than they might outside of the conflict. This isn’t about tolerating bullying; it’s about being cautious with the label we toss out when we’re unhappy with the way someone’s acting.
Copyright © 2007 by Tammy Lenski. All rights reserved.
Photo credit: Miguel Ugalde
Thanks, Tammy, for adding so much from your mediation expertise to bullying in the workplace. From stats out there, it’s becoming more problematic, so for folks experiencing it, I thought it would be well to name it as it is: abuse. There are so many angles…
I appreciate the way you’ve expanded this, Tammy!
Robyn, it is becoming more problematic, yes. An interesting increase to a workplace mediator like me. Makes me wonder, as with any increases shown by data: Is it increasing purely? Is the measurement of it increasing? Is it not increasing but the counting of instances is better? Is it not increasing by the labelling of it is?
If it’s the latter, I want to pause and be careful. If it’s the others, then there’s a lot more to figure out, I think.
Thanks for starting the conversation, Robyn!
Tammy, I really appreciate this caution. It seems to me that as soon as we label something, we often separate ourselves from engaging. We make it wrong, and dismiss others as irrelevant or avoidable.
How amazing it would be if we could find a way to connect at the point of conflict…!
That’s beautifully said, Lisa! You’ve described just what I’m all about here at Lenski.com…thank you for that gift!
Tammy,
Writing my thesis on bullies in the work place, so very interested in your comments. You say, “…it may be a person whose (just) acting less effectively than they might outside of the conflict.” Are you saying if the incident is isolated within the conflict the two co-workers are experiencing the perpetrator is not a bully? The perp is simply not handling the conflict effectively, but shouldn’t be called a bully?
Lack of conflict management skills and the inability to argue well are both identified as correlations to bullying behaviors, so I suppose I am disagreeing with you.
If you don’t like the way someone’s treating you, and it’s affecting your work, your confidence and your happiness, then it’s bullying. Whether the person is insulting you because you are in a conflict with them is irrelevant.
If one lacks conflict management skills, they will continue to insult or ignore others along the way through out their life, and by the very nature of that, they are a bully.
Catherine, I know Tammy will have much more to add to this with her expertise, but here’s my take:
I think much of conflict management work misses two important things: First, when we label someone “bully” we place ourselves outside the conflict, and outside the solution, as if we are somehow not a party, and not responsible. We are all 100 percent responsible for our perceptions and our reactions. We may not be conscious of the effect of our perceptions and resulting actions, which leads to my second point:
I feel that the solutions are found by meeting the conflict with curiosity and a goal of connection. If we really really look, connection is what we’re after, it’s the bigger purpose holding the resolution conversation.
What if we come to the table curious about what’s in the field of the dispute, argument or action? What are the underlying assumptions or unmet needs? How do we peel apart what’s real?
Bullying is a convenient label to bring us into the discussion, but I think it has to be abandoned to get anywhere, anywhere toward resolution.
My 2 cents.
Catherine, you’ve raised some interesting points that make me realize there’s more depth of thinking I can offer to my article. I’ll do that in another post, since it’ll be longer than anyone may want to slog through in the comments section! I won’t be able to get to it ’til next week, but get to it I will.
Lisa, thanks for adding some additional thinking to this complex question. I agree that there’s a whole lot of possibility that’s lost when we label instead of use our good curiosity to try to understand first. I can’t say that I agree that much of conflict management work misses the two items you mention, though…my sense is that really well trained and seasoned CM folks work in much the way you describe!
Tammy, bullying certainly deserves much more examination… especially bullying in the workplace. Thanks for taking this so much deeper!
You make good points. In my review of the academic research articles out there, often they discuss bullying as one-sided or examine the victim, and sometimes the organization, in an isolated manner. Researchers agree bullying is multi-causal, yet don’t ever seem to really examine it as such.
We do have to be aware of how we are perceiving things, and often conflict is a group phenomenon because of how the group as a whole reacts to it (e.g., 2 people are butting heads, but some staff are taking sides or encouraging bullying by laughing at jokes, etc, and the conflict becomes a group interaction). So bullying does need to be looked at through something more than “this person feels bullied and that’s the end of the story.” I do agree.
Yet, what happens when one person is consistently identified by staff members as someone who bullies them and others? Would you be willing to label them a bully then? Back to my previous point… if someone lacks in conflict management skills, and they continue to use “bullying behaviors” as a means to resolve their conflicts with others… aren’t they a bully?
Looking forward to your more in depth article Tammy. Agreed that it’s easy to write someone off as a bully and therefore disengage from having any responsibility in the behavior being directed at you… but…
The bullying of academics follows a pattern of horrendous, Orwellian elimination rituals, often hidden from the public. Despite the anti-bullying policies (often token), bullying is rife across campuses, and the victims (targets) often pay a heavy price. “Nothing strengthens authority as much as silence.” Leonardo da Vinci – “All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men [or good women] do nothing.” Winston Churchill.
As a former victim of workplace bullying/verbal abuse, I would like to know how I can start a movement to help my ex coworkers who are still there, and for many others who may be going through the same humiliation in other companies
please email me at stellrock@msn.com
Anthony