Bullies in the Workplace

Bullies At

Large Kids aren’t the only ones being bullied.

For many of her 14 years at a prominent Billings organization, Linda* enjoyed the respect and admiration of her colleagues. “I was very happy,” she said. “I lived and breathed that place.”

The organization boasted many longtime employees, some of whom had been there 25 and 30 years.

Then a new CEO arrived; everything changed.

“I worked like a dog, a ridiculous number of hours, to prove myself, and I guess I expected that he would know I was a good employee based on my past evaluations and reputation.”

Linda thought wrong.

By Shelley Van Atta

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10 Tactics Used by Bullies: Falsely accusing someone of “errors” not actually made.

Staring, glaring, being nonverbally intimidating and clearly showing hostility.

Discounting the person’s thoughts or feelings (“oh, that’s silly; that’s childish”) in meetings.

Using the “silent treatment” to “ice out” and separate from others.

***

If we saw a child being bullied on a playground, how many of us would immediately jump to the child’s rescue? All of us, right?

Why then, when we see a colleague being bullied at work do we not have the same reaction, asks Darren Walker, vice president of human resources for St. Vincent Healthcare and an ardent crusader against bullying.

As a society, bullying among kids has emerged as a critical epidemic that requires swift intervention. But Walker asserts that bullies are also prevalent in the workplace. He cites recent studies that show one out of every six U.S. workers (about 35 million) has experienced workplace bullying.

“It’s a silent epidemic, and the impacts are shocking,” Walker said. According to the Workplace Bullying Institute (WPI), bulling is four times more prevalent than sexual harassment or racial discrimination in the workplace; 29 percent of bullied targets considered suicide, and 16 percent had a plan.

Devious acts Exhibiting presumably uncontrollable mood swings in front of the group.

Making up own rules on the fly that even she/he does not follow.

Disregarding satisfactory or exemplary quality of completed work despite evidence.

Harshly and constantly criticizing having a different ‘standard’ for the target.

Starting, or failing to stop, destructive rumors or gossip about the person.

Encouraging people to turn against the person being tormented.

Source: Workplace Bullying Institute

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Walker defines bullying as abrasive and inappropriate behavior that erodes, disrupts, demeans, devalues and stifles.

A bully may use verbal abuse or display offensive conduct/behaviors (including nonverbal) which are threatening, humiliating or intimidating. Work interference – or sabotage – that prevents another from completing work is also considered bullying.

Bullies are experts at justifying, blaming, taking credit when it’s not due, deflecting blame from themselves onto others (regardless of innocence), and will exhibit behavior such as overreacting, impatience, belittling, demeaning, humiliation, becoming unglued, yelling or speaking loudly oblivious or uncaring about who is listening, door slamming, rolling their eyes, sighing and name-calling, among others.

Except, however, when their boss or executive/ management peers are around. Then, they are all sunshine and smiles, leaving little wonder why many bullies are boss- and corporate-peer favorites.

For their part, targets feel betrayed and powerless. Often they become submissive or disengaged, especially formerly high-producing employees. “They feel like no one cares,” said Walker.

Victims frequently experience stress-related illnesses, absenteeism, reduced innovation and lower productivity – all of which can lead to depression.

According to Walker, those who bully another are missing “emotional sonar,” he says.

They are blind to the emotional devastation and impact their behavior has on others.

***

The new CEO brought in his own people, and the culture changed. Many of Linda’s longtime colleagues began leaving.

“I started getting written up for things I formerly had been praised for,” she said. “My opinion had always been valued under the prior administration, but with the new CEO, I was told I was ‘outspoken’ and ‘opinionated.’

Every day she was worried about being fired.

“How can you sustain a positive mental attitude when you worry this could be the day your paycheck might end,” said Linda, a single mother with sole support of her children.

The CEO assigned Linda to train his new people, who later, she noted, became instigators of some of the worst bullying perpetrated against her.

“They were a mostly male staff and told me that a woman could not do this job,” seemingly ignoring the fact that she had been doing an exemplary job for well over a decade.

In one “terrifying” encounter, in front of others, the CEO leaned in close and shook his fist in her face while, ironically, screaming at her that she was too ‘confrontational.’

“All of these guys were large men,” she added, which “was physically intimidating.”

The stress she was living under was literally a killer. “I had no more to give.”

Linda was frequently sick and perpetually exhausted. She lost weight; her skin turned sallow and she became increasingly depressed.

“I couldn’t do it anymore. I knew that if I stayed in this job it would kill me, so I quit even before finding another job. It was that serious,” she quietly remembered. “I decided I would clean toilets, do anything, rather than let them beat me. I lost my house and had to move in with my mother. I lost my insurance, everything.”

Grey area

Joe Cassidy, a licensed clinical professional counselor at Billings Clinic and practitioner for 33 years, says that although bullying has been around for as long as he has been practicing, he has seen a marked escalation of incidents in the past decade and a half.

“We now worry about it across the board,” he says. “We worry about it with kids in schools, we worry about it with spouses in homes, we worry about it with employees in the workplace. It’s everywhere.”

Cassidy says the legal line between harassment, which is illegal, and bullying, which is not illegal, can be nebulous for the recipient and difficult to prove.

“How much bullying can someone tolerate; what’s their resiliency?” he asks. For instance, he explains, there are people who may work in a very close workspace. If a co-worker has a radio tuned to a channel that another co-worker finds offensive, or if the volume is too loud, it could be deemed as creating a toxic work environment. If the co-worker knows the radio is offensive and continues the behavior, that’s bullying.

Bullying, Cassidy adds, is not only direct abuse from intimidation, it also can be what is termed ‘interference,’ such as assigning an employee to a room with no window, phone or computer; withholding information necessary to complete a work task; not providing adequate training; or not giving an employee the right tools to perform the job, with the intent of making that person miserable enough to quit.

“These behaviors discredit a person,” Cassidy says. “It’s a nefarious tact bullies use because it’s hard to prove. I tell people, if they have difficulty with someone, the thing to do is to document, document, document: date, time, what was said.

If you want to state your case credibly, you have to have specifics.”

Insidious targeting

Bullying is difficult to counter. Legally, workplace harassment connotes sexual misconduct and a hostile work environment from which workers are protected by law. WPI reports that illegal discriminatory harassment occurs in only 20 percent of bullying cases, suggesting 80 percent of bullying falls outside the scope of legal redress.

While 61 percent of bullying occurs within the same gender, women bullies target other women in 80 percent of cases.

Many corporations don’t have anti-bullying policies. To date, no state has enacted any antibullying laws. However, 25 states have introduced anti-bulling legislation; 11 states, including Montana, have had active bills.

No dummies

Bullies tend to have a high IQ, Walker says, although they have a low EQ (emotional intelligence). They often are the rainmakers; the top producers who are highly valued. They know how to manipulate to get ahead without getting caught. With a need to control, they tend to be micro-managers, checking your emails, tracking everything you do for fear something will reflect negatively against them.

Think of the person in your office of whom most people are afraid and new people are warned not to cross. They’re tolerated because they typically have longevity, work long hours and let everyone know just how good they are. If you complain about the bully’s behavior, you may be told that, “This is just the way she is. Ignore it.

Learn how to deal with it.” The bully’s behavior is minimalized and the victim, not the bully, is being asked to change.

WPI reports that ninety-three percent of managers surveyed said they don’t have the skills to deal with bullying.

As organizational leaders, Walker says, “We are failing ourselves if we minimize the impact aggressors have on our organizations.”

What these leaders often fail to see are the many valuable employees they lose because of just one bully. Good employees whom a company may have spent tens of thousands of dollars recruiting and training are lost to their competition. High turn-over is expensive.

***

Nearly four years later, Linda lives and works in North Carolina “doing the exact same thing I did” at the organization in Billings, in a job she was recommended for by the organization’s former CEO, for whom she had worked those many years.

“He felt terrible about the way I had been treated, and he knew my abilities. He suggested this job to me, and it was a life-changer.”

Linda has a “high success rate” in her current position, where, she is being groomed for a vice presidency.

And after she quit her health improved dramatically.

“Nobody should have to go through the bullying I was put through,” she said. “Quitting that job broke my heart. It had been my life.”

Still, she has no regrets. “If I hadn’t quit, I’d be dead now. They thought they could get me,” she said determinedly. “They couldn’t.”

As for the new CEO whose administration allowed the bullying?

“He was fired,” she said with finality.

Walker is hoping Montana enacts an antibullying law.

“Nobody ever should go home hurt emotionally or physically,” says the anti-bullying advocate. “Nothing pains me more than seeing people hurting other people. We need to treat each other with dignity and respect. To tolerate anything less is to reduce the humanity of us all.” *The name was changed to protect the individual’s privacy.

What should you do if you’re a victim of bullying?

“If there is a chain of command that is responsive, report what’s going on with your supervisor,” advises Joe Cassidy, a licensed clinical professional counselor at Billings Clinic.

If that gets no traction, go over their head.

“Ratchet it up if you can’t get the type of response you’re looking for.” He emphasizes that confrontation with a bully is advisable only if it’s safe. “That would be the first line.

Then, it’s a matter of pulling in any resources you need.”

If at all possible, get as much physical distance as you can from the bully.

Cassidy says, “Detachment and avoidance are key. If you can stay away from the person, you won’t get conned into their control issues, which is what they want. If you have to work in close proximity, try to become emotionally detached. Stay in your own bubble, encapsulated away from emotional or social interaction with that person. Try to remember that you’re there to work and not to socialize,” He reminds us that we do not have to like or be friends with everyone at work, but “we do have to be professional and civil.”

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