Bullying Behavior and Conflict Management

Excerpt from my new book, Mastering the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI).

I’ve often been asked questions about bullying behavior in the workplace and how to use the TKI Conflict Model to help understand and better manage such difficult situations. In fact, in my consulting work with all kinds of organizations and institutions, I’ve often had to counsel members (including top managers and senior executives) who were experienced at making life unbearable, dangerous, painful, and fearful for others—usually due to either extreme aggressiveness or extreme passivity.?

To discuss bullying and troublemaking behavior in workshop settings necessarily requires the full support and cooperation of top management (even when some of these executives might have been identified as troublemakers or bullies). Bottom line: The CEO has to realize that if “ordinary conflict” is very costly to the organization if not handled well (absenteeism, tardiness, distraction, poor decision making and problem solving), the costs for the more extreme forms of dysfunctional (pathological) conflict-handling behavior are even more debilitating for the organization—and all its stakeholders.

In a series of workshops throughout the organization, I discuss the five modes according to those “normal” underlying dimensions: (1A) assertiveness and (1B) cooperativeness. I then change the name of those two underlying dimensions: (2A) aggressiveness and (2B) passive hostility, respectively. After defining and discussing the later more extreme forms of behavior, those five conflict modes take on a new light. Members in that series of workshops have no difficulty in providing many examples of how any mode—when acted out by extremely insecure, angry, resentful, and unconscious persons—can engender the kinds of bad interpersonal experiences that have been associated with bullying and troublemaking behavior.

It is most illuminating when members in the workshop form small groups to articulate how to detect when assertiveness becomes aggressiveness and when cooperativeness becomes passive hostility. The members also discuss what specific signs and signals can enable people to stop themselves and others from “accidentally” switching from (1) the healthy ways of addressing and resolving conflict that inspire people to do their very best to (2) those unhealthy behaviors that only serve to hurt and harm fellow employees.?

In many of such workshops, I have found it extremely helpful to present and then discuss fundamental aspects of ego psychology (yes, in organizational settings!), so everyone becomes aware of how loathing feelings toward oneself and repressed anger, rage, and hate from prior violations can lead one to act out (release, displace) that past pain onto present circumstances. Making this topic PUBLIC in a workshop can do wonders to sensitize all organizational members that certain behaviors must be seen for what they are—and must no longer be tolerated in any form, which then becomes embedded in the “corporate culture.”

If all members are made aware of the two different sets of the underlying dimensions on the TKI Conflict Model and are provided with some practical knowledge of ego psychology, it becomes VERY UNPOPULAR for anyone to enact “bad” behavior—which will then get them viewed as insecure people who are acting out old wounds. It’s also worthwhile to develop an official policy on what behavior will no longer be tolerated in the workplace, now that there’s public knowledge about managing conflict in healthy vs. unhealthy ways.

Kilmann Diagnostics offers a series of?eleven recorded online courses and nine assessment tools?on the four timeless topics: conflict management, change management, consciousness, and transformation. By taking these courses and passing the Final Exams, you can earn your?Certification?in Conflict and Change Management with the Thomas-Kilmann Instrument (TKI). For the most up-to-date and comprehensive discussion of Dr. Kilmann’s theories and methods, take a look at his most recent books:?Creating a Quantum Organization and Mastering the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI).