Caution! Bully at Work

A lot has been spoken and written about bullying especially when it happens to children which in itself is a huge problem. However, what gets relatively less spoken about is “Bullying at Work” and a lot of it is covered under the garb of “Office Politics”.

Workplace Bullying is a bit tricky since its difficult to prove it and a lot of times twisted to put the victim in bad light – “Couldn’t take the pressure” or “Can’t multitask”, ”Doesn’t stay back late to learn” , “Isn’t very Social” etc are used in a manner which screams that the victim is now the “Incompetent Team Player who is bringing the team down” and not the other way around. This puts up a lot of pressure and emotional stress which is not a good sign. Workplace Bullying has a significant negative impact on the employer as well on account of reduced productivity, lower employee satisfaction, etc. However, it is not so pronounced in all cases since the Bully is not always a dud but is average-good at what he/she does and is good enough to maintain the status quo in the short to medium run. These bully’s move ahead to other organizations and keep up their bullying in some forms or the other and this cycle continues. A vast majority of times this leads to immense frustration for the bullied and they slip into a shell or drop off whilst in a few cases there is actually a fight back. The impact of this on individual employees is significant with drop in self-esteem, morale, health, addictions, job satisfaction which in itself has a snowballing effect on their family life and possibly the shaping up of a bully in the form of their kids. In Simon Sinek’s Life advice video, he talks about a research wherein “Parents who come back from jobs the hate have a higher probability of their kids being bullies at school”.

Now, the most important question is the fact that why does this happen? A few of them would have been bullies while growing up and possibly they continue whereas there is also an addition of bullies who by the virtue of gaining power and the desire to hold onto the same, start bullying others. Also, the fact when the organization culture doesn’t provide for checks and balances on behaviour of its managers who believe in “Managing Up” as against “Managing Down”, the bullying will continue and more often than not will lead to talent dropping out and classifying it a case of “Office Politics”. Office Bullying happens since the Bully likes to cling on to his position of power and believes that he/she is entitled to have people work for him as against he working for them and with them. Bullies often seem to be social, well networked and tend to talk aloud and with lot of confidence sometimes even whilst not knowing what they are talking. The problem is that a few of these qualities viz., social, well networked, confidence, etc. are some of the qualities that good leaders have and thus gets difficult to identifying the bullies and their very nature. The major difference is that leaders use these skills to “bring out the best that their teams are capable of” and the bullies use it to “Take away the best that their teams are capable of”. Sometimes the Bully might be your best performer – “The Best Sales Person or the Best Techie or the Best XXX”, but this best is a short-medium term achievement and he/she is destroying the organization and the society at large and thus needs to be dealt with accordingly. It is not about a manager or a subordinate but about the very nature of a bully and a lot of times these bullies move up the corporate ladder and occupy levels of leadership which increases their scope of destruction.

#Workplace Bullying #Bullying #JobSatisfaction # UnleashingPotential