Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, Leona Helmsley (The Queen of Mean) have all been accused of taking bullying to the extreme – Harvey and Kevin with accusations of sexual harassment and Leona with cruelty towards her employees.
Bullying can occur anywhere – but no longer welcome or accepted in the workplace. The Merriam-Webster dictionary states “Bullying is the abuse and mistreatment of someone vulnerable by someone stronger, more powerful.” With this definition it is easy to see how bullying can easily occur even if the perpetrator is not conscious of a bullying behavior.
Consider these possible bullying situations:
- Jokes that are offensive to some listeners or viewers
- Comments about one’s dress, grooming or behavior.
- Constant negative comments regarding one’s work
- Yelling or speaking in a loud tone towards an employee
- Flinging someone’s work across the desk towards them
- Throwing something at an individual
- Leaving an individual out of conversations so they feel ostracized
You can discover How to Protect Yourself From Bullying in the Workplace HERE
These are some areas where leaders may not see their behavior as bullying, merely doing their job of overseeing others. Unfortunately, whenever we frequently make others feel devalued we are demonstrating bullying.
How can you counteract bullying behavior? It isn’t easy because we tend to behave in ways which have worked for us before and because these behaviors are part of our “make up” we see them as non-threatening and even acceptable because we may see our co-workers, family and even friends exhibiting these same behaviors.
Take Sam for instance. Sam saw nothing wrong with his behavior of stomping off to an employee’s desk and showing them in a brusque way with his finger that the policy manual said what was done was inappropriate. Because this intimidated his employee it was deemed bullying.
Actions to deter bullying:
- Take the offending individual aside and in private physically show him or her what you have witnessed – follow this with a discussion about bullying and its effect on employee morale and performance
- Provide training sessions on what bullying looks like and how to deal with it, if and when it occurs
- Post bulletins and send out memos indicating a “bullying free” workplace stating the consequences of such behavior
- Follow through on what you have indicated the consequences are – to make a statement and not follow through is a grave miscarriage of your organization’s culture
View great resources to put a stop to bullying HERE.
Become aware, pay attention and observe what is going on around you. Bullying can be very destabilizing and no one wants it in their workplace. It is up to us to put a stop to bullying in the workplace.
Have you had success addressing bullying in the workplace? Let us hear about your success and together we can drive it out of the workplace.
Travis has been an entrepreneur and business owner in Tulsa for over 30 years. He is a certified Life Options Retirement Coach and is certified to facilitate and deliver the Manager As Coach Learning Series (MACLS) through CPI. He serves on the board of Career Partners International (CPI) and is an equity partner in CPI, offering a global reach with over 220 offices.