Bullying can occur in the workplace as a result of the plain contrariness of someone’s personality, more serious shortcomings in one’s character, or competitive pressure that sometimes unleashes these elements that can be found buried somewhere in the makeup of all of us. Moreover, it can occur everywhere in the organization – indeed, recent surveys have shown that nearly half of all workers in the United States feel that they are the victims of bosses who are bullies – and almost two-thirds of workers feel that such bosses should be subject to lawsuits for that sort of behavior. This is obviously a serious problem in contemporary society generally, and in today’s pressure-cooker organizations, as well.
It is important to do three things in order: First, rule out organizational environmental factors that may be releasing bullying behavior. You want your organization to be competitive and productive, but you don’t want to push the temperature over the line so that it becomes, in fact, internally destructive and counterproductive. This is just one of the many chores of management, but one of the more important ones: get the organizational atmosphere right. Don’t just brush this one off with “that’s policy” or “that’s how we do it around here” – if the way things are done is causing this sort of problem in your organization, change the way things are done.
Second, even if you have found and corrected environmental shortcomings, consider the training and skills of the person(s) accused of bullying. Is this person properly assigned, based on those factors? Is there training that will fill the shortfall, and reduce the miscomprehension leading to the stress and pressure that this person feels? Is there, possibly, something else going on in this person’s life that is inappropriately surfacing at the workplace? If so, is there any way you can help the person obtain proper counselling or care? Give your putative bully a chance – but show some discipline, here:
Third, remove the problem person from the organizational environment where he or she is doing harm. Document, and either reassign or discharge the bullying worker/manager. If the environment is not at fault, and if there are no extenuating circumstances, or the person doesn’t respond to your first effort to remediate them, then you very likely have a problem that won’t go away by itself: you will have to make it go away. No amount of misdirected charity will relieve the situation at this point. You cannot imagine (or, perhaps you can!) the amount of physical, emotional, and psychological distress this person can cause to spread around him or her in your organization, and how much damage – even paralysis – he or she can cause to operations.
If you find yourself at this stage after considering and acting on the first two steps, then follow through; do your job as a manager and get the bully away from his or her victims – after all, you’re one of them.
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Today’s Tip: It’s worth bearing in mind that the social aspects of the workplace are comprehensive. With that in mind, please view today’s piece by Steve Roesler on a Workplace Reality at the other end of the spectrum from our topic here.
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One of the best posts on bullying I’ve seen yet. I love the approach which I understand as follows. Give notice and lay out the rules clearly. Identify factors that may be contributing to the problem Narrow down to the “choice” issues.
If a person can’t do what you want you have either a training or a fitness for duty problem. If the person can do what you want, but won’t, you have a discipline problem.
Hello Wally,
Thank you for your kind comments about this post. I do think we have to remember we are running businesses, and while happy to help people learn how to work productively, there has to be motivation in them to do so.
My wife, a clinical psychologist, learned from one of her mentors that “you can’t try harder than the patient.” – a great way to conceptualize the issue.
So, yes, work back from your objectives to see what might be the true cause of the problem, and then resolve it, whether that means adjusting policy – which can be agonizing for managers to do – or reassigning or removing employees who are unwilling to collaborate maturely in the workplace.
This can also be difficult for a manager to do, but it is decisions like this – whether regarding policy or employment – that are what managers are paid for. And if employees are active discipline problems, then we owe it to the organization and its other employees to act like managers – not parents.
Thanks so much again for your visit and your insightful restatement of the issues!