Bystander Apathy: The Human Cost of Not Speaking Up

I have to tell it to you straight. There's no other way. We have been dancing around this subject for far too long, with human lives destroyed, derailed and devastatingly lost as a result. No hyperboles were used in the making of that sentence. Bystander apathy or 'The Bystander Effect', is a psycho-social phenomenon whereby individuals seek to be guided by what others around them are doing as to whether they intervene or speak up when they are witness to or have knowledge of bullying, harassment or sexual harassment in a workplace. Low levels of psychological safety, the old 'Code of Silence' and retributive norms in the workplace are the enabling conditions (the 'manure', if you will) in which Bystander Apathy and Bystander Stress thrive and become normalised; often seen in highly traditional, hierarchical, command-and-control and highly patriarchal environments, the research would suggest. If we are ever going to reduce the staggering statistics representative of poor/harmful behaviour, incivility, racism, exclusionary practices, bullying, harassment and sexual harassment in New Zealand workplaces, then our focus in workplaces must be in supporting organisational citizens to be UPstanding.

I get it. I do. Interrupting unhelpful, poor, harmful or even unlawful behaviour in the workplace feels incredibly frightening and high risk, particularly if the behaviour is exhibited by someone who we might report to or who sits further up the old 'org-chart' than we do. It is normal to fear the implications and consequences of being UPstanding. It is normal for our heart to pound and our knee's to knock. Many of us struggle with 'courageous conversations', even when the circumstances are banal or benign. There's five VERY important points, however, that we must consider if we are to cultivate a strong sense of organisational citizenship in our employees and encourage our people to be ethical bystanders:

1. The more we learn about tools, strategies and techniques to support mindful interventions, the more at ease we become with being UPstanding. Investing in professional development and coaching for our people is key. I'm not talking one-off, discrete learning events nor 30 minute online modules. There is NO evidence to support that either of these strategies, on their own, will alter maladaptive behaviour. If this were true, your Code of Conduct module would have rid your organisation of all its ills...
2. The more we learn about and importantly, practice these interventions, the more we create a momentum for 'others' to model and imitate our actions/behaviour (creating a new organisational norm). Leaders play an important role here too. Poor behaviour tolerated by leaders sends a message of 'anything goes' here. The goal is to reach a critical tipping point of behaviour change that leaves harm-do'er's (and those who aide and abet such behaviours) as the 'unpopular and un-evolved minority' (who wants to be in that club) and rewards, promotes, positively affirms and celebrates those whose behaviour is respectful, healthy, helpful and values-based.
3. Remembering that fear is a temporary emotion that can be tolerated (and survived) when there is something as high stake as the wellbeing, psychological and/or physical safety, emotional wellbeing and potentially the life of a fellow employee. If something unlawful has occurred in a workplace and an employee/employee's have knowledge of it or relevant information that might be used as evidence, the stakes and onus become all the higher, don't you think? NB: A good time to live the values we say we believe in, me thinks. Again, no hyperboles were used in the making of this sentence.
4. A high support/high expectation model must be implemented if organisations are serious about improving positive workplace behaviour and driving out maladaptive behaviour. Remembering that we humans are imperfect; we carry many an-unconscious bias in our briefcases and have adopted many unhelpful coping mechanisms during our life span. Positive, respectful behaviour is not inherent in us all, sadly. Positive behaviour needs to be understood, valued, supported, cultivated, encouraged, modelled, highlighted, explored, acknowledged and rewarded just as poor, harmful, unhelpful and malignant behaviour needs to be actively prevented, responded to in a timely and effective manner with 'harm-do'ers' held accountable should they contravene the 'rules' or 'agreed norms' of a healthy workplace culture. Organisational justice is key, as it is any community.
5. Organisations Leaders, PCBU's and Boards need to focus their attention and resources in a more balanced way to develop UPstanding Organisational Citizens using a Prosocial Leadership framework and behaviours as a guide. Purporting to hold particular organisational values on a website or in promotional material while exhibiting asynchronous behaviours and decision making is getting old, tired, if not dreadfully passe, and is burdening workplaces more than leaders realise and certainly more than they care to measure. Progressive workplaces know better and do better.

"Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear". Aren't our values more important than fear? Aren't our colleagues lives and wellbeing more important than fear? Isn't the demonstration of honour and personal power more important than fear? Isn't the long game of who we are as people more important than the temporary feeling of fear? Is the shame or guilt we feel for intervening or speaking out easier to swallow than the temporary feeling of fear we might endure in the moment? Me? Well, I tend to think that there is a mindful moment, in between an act and a response. It is inside that moment that we get to be the person we want to be, irrespective of whether we tremble or not. Trembling is survivable. We do not perish from trembling hands nor knocking knees. We are afforded personal power in this lifetime. If we are too busy looking left and right, waiting to see how others around us respond, we have have forfeited that precious moment to live our values, to choose courage over comfort and to prevent harm. Whether we know it or not, whether we choose to acknowledge it or not, we have allowed ourselves to become part of the problem if we choose bystander apathy, indifference or we succumb to bystander stress. If there is anything I know about adversity, pain and fear is that our ability to withstand such 'burdens' is far greater than we could ever imagine and far easier to conquer when practiced together.