Bullying is intolerable. But are bullies always bad?

“Bullies have a scarcity mindset. They believe the world is fundamentally hostile. They tend to be overplaced to their actual abilities. They have this deep, deep hunger for status and recognition.” - Amy Cuddy

In the first year, I was quite good—although my boss didn’t share that opinion.??

In the second year, he may have had a point.???

By the third year, he was right: I was sh*t at my job.?

The swearing and public dressing-downs, the interminable caustic criticism, and the brutal humiliations had all taken their toll. My self-worth had been blitzed.???

I constantly had to second guess what he may want to avoid being shouted at, meaning I’d lost my ability to make clear, assertive decisions. In its place, all I could offer was a hesitant, nervous, foggy paralysis. I was a pale imitation of the bright, imaginative, emotionally intelligent man who had entered the company a few years earlier.?

Anxiety entered other aspects of my life, as if by osmosis. My marriage suffered and then failed. My health deteriorated, both mentally and physically, through a stress-related auto-immune condition. I fell out with friends and colleagues. Life and work were rarely anything other than things to be joylessly tolerated.??

Several other colleagues attracted the same onslaught, but that was little consolation. Approaching HR with my complaints induced a sense of victimhood. Victimhood that was loudly amplified when I was rebuffed by a defensive HR manager, who strongly implied that it was me who was at fault and that I needed to toughen up.

My body’s way of keeping me safe

The sense of threat was constant because I was under attack. Knowing what I do now, my sympathetic stress response was highly activated. Adrenaline and cortisol perpetually flooded my system and, over time, exhausted me.??

Incrementally, that “fight or flight” response was replaced by freeze: the most extreme of our stress responses.???

In the animal kingdom, freezing is the last resort of creatures that have been caught by a predator. They “play dead”, hoping the mauling will subside. Sometimes, when traumatised, we too can unconsciously freeze, as our nervous system thinks it’s the only way to stay safe.?

As I’m telling this story, despite almost two decades having passed, I notice that the feelings of shame, inadequacy and embarrassment aren’t completely gone. I notice a hesitation to share this story with people who know me now as confident, calm and successful.? They’ll see a part of me that I usually prefer to keep hidden. I also notice a hesitation to share it with people who knew me then. But that’s what bullying does. It diminishes us.??

?And yet...are bullies always “bad”??

“I suspect that, once in the role, his fear of failure, his imposter syndrome and his anxiety about his own inadequacy triggered his fight response.”?

It’s also seductive, nearly two decades on, to join in with the zeitgeist that bullying must never be tolerated. That “toxic” managers and leaders should be excised from our organisations, and that care, kindness and empathy for those who are bullied must win.?

To a point, I agree with this narrative. Bullying is unacceptable in any progressive organisation and must be tackled with clarity and unambiguous purpose.?

However, I feel discomfort with the judgment and sentencing of bullies as “toxic”, as bad people who require no thought beyond being expelled.???

I have never had a proper conversation with “my” bully, but he was promoted beyond his level by a CEO who was impressed by his functional experience. I suspect that, once in the role, his fear of failure, his imposter syndrome and his anxiety about his own inadequacy triggered his fight response.?

Nowadays, I’m full of compassion for leaders facing this kind of difficulty, and thus find it compelling to nurture compassion for him too.?

?He got on marvellously with people he rated and who shared his approach. I wasn’t one of those people. My approach was the polar opposite of his. He was detail oriented; I was more abstract (and less thorough). He had a command-and-control style; I was more collaborative (and less decisive). He was certain; I was curious (and hence slower).?

As a leader in an organisation, in a frenetically competitive industry, he was uninterested in diversity of thought and just needed people to do what he told them, and to do it quickly. Members of his team who questioned his directives or didn’t immediately comply were exasperating. We were a threat and thus we were, literally, infuriating.???

Why bullies bully?

“When things are out of kilter, we often behave in ways that get us more of what we don’t want.”?

The fury that my colleagues and I triggered when we didn’t do his bidding manifested in constant aggression, and that aggression made it increasingly unlikely I’d deliver what he wanted. From his perspective, I recognise that I was the problem, not him.?

?When things are out of kilter, we often behave in ways that get us more of what we don’t want. That was true for both of us.?

?With the help of some wonderful people, I managed to get out from under and started to re-find myself. A few years later, I was leading a big department through a major change programme that was disrupting the way things had been done for years.??

?I remember feeling exasperated by a couple of direct reports who didn’t buy into the big picture vision that I was sharing. In part, they were alienated by a lack of detail. Did they feel bullied at times? I honestly can’t say with certainty that they didn’t. I hope I treated them with respect and care, but I was stressed and so were they, so I can’t know for sure.?

Bullying is intolerable. Bullies, however, are a more complex issue. There are people who want to make others’ lives miserable for the sake of it, but, in my experience, they are relatively rare. Much more often, they are trying their best but are overwhelmed by a fear of failing.???

When we attain the seniority to which we’ve long aspired, deep, lifelong insecurities can be exposed by a sense of threat to self-image and reputation. Sometimes, a compulsive response is to persecute others as a means of desperately seeking to grasp a feeling of power, agency and superiority.?

Managing a team and leading an organisation can be a lonely and stressful place. Failing to be popular and respected, failing to command authority, and failing to feel as though we’re creating followership, can lead to an aggressive response. Which can quickly spiral into bullying.?

How organisations can manage the problem of bullying at its source?

“It’s not a case of simply banishing the “bullies”—a kneejerk reaction when accusations emerge is often too little, too late.”?

Senior leaders and HR Departments must have a zero-tolerance attitude to bullying. But they also need to reflect on how a systematic lack of care and development can lead to that unsupported, un-self-aware, insecure person being put in a position where they resorted to bullying.???

When bullying does surface, it needs to be tackled with clarity and unambiguous purpose. But it’s not a case of simply banishing the “bullies”—a kneejerk reaction when accusations emerge is often too little, too late.?

Organisations must also encourage and nurture the managers and leaders who do show self-awareness and a willingness to understand their habitual patterns (through reflection, coaching or leadership training), especially those that don’t serve them and others. They must recruit, promote and nurture managers and leaders who are working with their own insecurities and vulnerabilities, rather than those who suppress them by exerting injurious power over others.??

When we uphold this duty of care for our leaders and their teams, we can manage the problem of bullying at its source, instead of waiting until individuals—and the wider workplace—have reached boiling point.?

Have you experienced or witnessed workplace bullying? How do you think organisations can better tackle it? Let me know your thoughts in the comments.?

About me?

I have been working as a coaching psychologist for the last 20-odd years with a wide range of executives, including a number of CEOs, lots of brilliant, high-potential women, and the occasional rock star. I believe the world would be a significantly better place with more emotional intelligence, so my work is dedicated to helping my clients gain an awareness of habitual patterns; their own, their team's and their wider organisations.?

I started this kind of work at the turn of the century at T Mobile UK, where, after working in marketing and customer experience, I ended up as Head of Organisational Performance. After completing a master's degree in coaching psychology, and years of additional training (in Gestalt psychotherapy, coaching supervision, Transactional Analysis, sensorimotor psychotherapy, and polyvagal theory, to name a few), I co-founded Famn with my daughter, Molly Taylor , in 2020.?

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About Famn?

Famn is a trusted strategic coaching partner to organisations in high-pressure sectors. We coach senior executives and teams to develop the emotional intelligence needed to navigate our increasingly complex personal and professional realities. Through an integrated approach that combines psychologically-grounded coaching and progressive leadership principles, we help organisations instil real and lasting change.?

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