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Workplace bullying…different from the schoolyard variety more analogous to domestic violence (and we want to hear from you!)

John Atkins (North Bay ON)

(Based on The New York Times piece by Benedict Carey, reprinted in The Star, July 2, 2004

John Atkins

Whereas schoolyard bullies tend to pick on the smaller or weaker children, adult bullies in the workplace are just as likely to pick on a strong subordinate, according to Dr. Gary Namie, director of the Workplace Bullying and Trauma Institute in Bellingham WA.

Researchers and policy makers from several countries met recently in Bergen Norway to discuss the issue of workplace bullying. One researcher, Dr. Calvin Morrill of the University of California at Irvine, who studies corporate culture puts it this way, “We’re finding that some of the behaviors that we think most protect us are what in fact allow the behavior to continue. Workers become desensitized, tacitly complicit and don’t always act rationally.

While taking the lead in aggressive behaviors may be appropriate on the football or battle fields, the rules of the factory floor and office are very different, requiring a very different approach. And this bullying approach has often more to do with the boss’s desires than with the employees needs.

Dr. Harvey Hornstein suggests a supervisor may use bullying to swat down a threatening subordinate, or a manager may be looking for a scapegoat to carry the department’s or the boss’s frustrations. But most often, Hornstein argues, bullies bully subordinates for the sheer pleasure of exercising power. Hornstein, the author of Brutal Bosses and their Prey, says further, “It was a kind of low grade sadism, that was the most common reason; they’d start on one person and then move on to someone else.

Nevertheless, researchers find little evidence to suggest that worker productivity suffers in the face of boss-bullying. Even in the most hostile workplace, workers are still doing the work for which they are being paid. Some workers even give a little extra, in the hope that they might make themselves look good and others look much worse. (The Workplace Doctor website cites evidence that questions this, later in this piece.)

Bullying bosses are often very good at “managing up,” meaning that their reverence for power is extended to those above them who are even more powerful.

Dr. Mark Levey, a Chicago psychotherapist, say that nasty bosses often elicit from their subordinates defensive habits that they first developed as children, such as reflexive submission and explosive rage. “Once these defensive positions lock in, it’s like people are transported to a different reality and can no longer see what’s actually happening to them and cannot adapt,” according to Levey.

When a boss is bullying a co-worker, there is often clear evidence that others do nothing to support the target. (Namie prefers ‘target’ to ‘victim’ since it more accurately names the situation.) Ambition (of co-workers) is the most insidious ally of the bully, given that their self-interest motivates their passive stance.

There is some empirical evidence that workers in a nasty work environment, caused in part by the bullying manager, tend to become less sensitive with others at work. This dynamic researchers call “moral disengagement,” a measure of people’s sensitivity to others, their views on the appropriateness of jokes, put-downs, coldness toward colleagues. Workers who work for supportive and fair bosses show a maintenance of their sensitivity or an increase in it.

Frequently, when workers witness a boss humiliating a colleague, they are relieved that they are not the target, and they begin to wonder if the colleague did not deserve the treatment. In that case, in the words of Benedict, “The brutal behavior goes unchallenged, and the target feels a sudden chill of isolation that is all too real. By doing nothing, even people who abhor the bullying become complicit in the behavior and find themselves supplying reasons to justify it.”

According to Dr. Morrill (UCal, Irvine), “It is those who are not part of a tight group (of co-workers) who feel truly desperate and in danger of losing their jobs, who appear most likely to speak up. Most others learn to perform an elaborate dance, trying to preserve their status while being careful not to forfeit their sense of decency all the while looking for an escape hatch.”

Some notes from the website www.theworkdoctor.com linked to the Workplace Bullying and Trauma Institute:

Based on U.S. figures from 2003, 58% of bullies in the workplace are female, and 42% are male.
Woman-on-woman bullying represents 50% of all workplace bullying.
Man-on-Woman bullying represents 30% of all workplace bullying
Man-on-Man: 12%
Woman-on-Man: 8%
Probability for women targets to be bullied by a woman bully is 63%
Probability for men targets to be bullied by a man is 62%.
(Note: Bullying is same-sex harassment, most of the time, and therefore invisible when seen through the lens of anti-discrimination laws. Existing civil rights laws in the U.S., believed by the general public to prohibit harassment, do not apply to same-sex cases (except when unwanted sexual overtures are involved.)
Only 23% of bullies chose to do the bullying themselves; 73% enlisted other to help-by alternately bullying the target alone (32%) and at other times having help from others (45%)
The target’s co-workers frequently became the bully’s allies (48%). Women bullies recruited co-workers a bit more than did men bullies (53% and 42%, respectively.)
Men bullies tend to rely upon management (57%) supporters as frequently as women bullies enlist the help of the target’s co-workers (53%).
(Note: Men bullies use the organization’s hierarchy; women bullies use the social network of peers to accomplish the bullying.)

A recent reliable study estimates that approximately 1 in 6 U.S. workers has directly experienced destructive bullying in the past year.
Bullies are rarely psychopathic; the majority are opportunistic intelligently reading the pattern of who gets promoted and who gets drummed out of our competition-worshipping workplaces. The Bullies terrorize with impunity. The only skill deficiencies bullies have are those of empathy, compassion and loyalty to anyone except themselves. They are masterful communicators, albeit used solely to harm others.
Half of all bullies are women. Women bullies target women 84% of the time; men bullies target women 69% of the time, making women the majority of targets in the workplace. The vast majority of bullies (81%) are bosses, some are co-workers and a few bully up the ladder.

Bullying poses a serious health hazard to targets by compromising their psychological and physical health, disassembling their social network and risking economic devastation through the loss of their jobs because “employment at will” encourages the bully’s misuse of power. Targets who are most surprised by the baseless cruelty inflicted on them suffer the most severe effects (PTSD) and take the longest time to heal afterwards. Silent frozen workers worsen the problem often by choosing to cut off support, to tacitly or directly join the bully’s personal vendetta against the target. Eventually the workplace is paralyzed by fear, incapable of productive work, and susceptible to costly downtime with an unhealthy workforce and an increased liability for destructive employment practices.

Readers:
www.workthatworks.ca is very interested in this workplace dynamic. We would like to hear your story, about being a target of workplace bullying, or of witnessing workplace bullying. Please visit our “Submit” section, tell us your story, and we will share your stories with our readers, while preserving your identity and the identity of your place of employment. Workplace bullying is certainly not restricted to workplaces south of the 49th parallel!
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Current Edition:
Workplace bullying…different from the schoolyard variety more analogous to domestic violence (and we want to hear from you!) (July 15, 2004)

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