How I re-regained my confidence at work lost to office bullying

I remembered this experience after reading another article about office bullying and thought of sharing it with all.

This is from my first year of work post completing my MBA. Our office had one very senior manager, who was a bully for all with no discrimination. Matters were made worse for freshers like me, straight from college and those who had the tendency to miss the finer details. I was inducted into the organization by the same manager. He lost no opportunity in humiliating me and other management trainees on whatever we presented to him.

Even after being assigned a dedicated role, post six months of training, he wouldn’t stop. It made matters so bad that I could not sleep. It had hurt my confidence so much that I started hesitating in taking any new initiatives or talking about them with him. I was lucky to have good friends at work. I had shared my state of mind with few of them. They tried to play it down and advised me to get used to this as this bully was a very powerful manager, close to President and promoters. I confided about my situation with another junior employee of my age, who had inducted me in my assigned role. His advice was simple:

“Don’t meet him – don’t meet those people who discourage you, who try to show you down and stop expecting any guidance or support from such senior people. Just make sure that you do your work mindfully and ensure that you shine in your work”.

I didn’t meet this bully for next two or three months and ensured high standards of work execution. Even when he would call me, I would find a way to keep interactions sharp and limited. I built such strong work relationships with all other people in organization that I was noticed by senior management for the positive attitude brought into our daily operations by my work and approach. While my interactions didn’t stop with this bully, I ensured that my work remained of high quality and I had limited interactions with people who cast negative influence on their co-workers around them. Soon, I regained confidence in my abilities and I was assigned with much higher responsibilities by the management.

I had similar situations many times again in my career, however lesson learnt early helped me to not fall in the trap and losing my faith in my abilities.

My advice to all the professionals at any stage of work is that:

Never Let your guard down to any of the office bullies around you. Let your good work do the talking and surround yourself with people with positive mindset. You would always be a winner.