When bullying occurs, it is
because of toxic cultures that create unhealthy drives and unmet needs. From
the corporate leader to the employee and
even to the school bully or popular cliques bully-type behavioral choices are in response to
perceived unmet needs and threats. For example, corporate leaders and employee
may feel insecure about company stability, performance, education and
development demands, being fired, safety, benefits, or just making enough to
support the family. Some of the fears students face are failing, gaining
independence successfully, finding the right career and major, being
responsible for self-care, falling in love, making friends, or just being lost in
the system.
It is not enough to ask leaders,
employees or students to befriend loners or victims of bullying and all of a
sudden play nice and be kind toward one another. Primal responses
to fear and abandonment create bully-type
behaviors and responses. These primal instincts that are fear-based become drives
for humans to return to equilibrium or homeostasis
during or after stressful events or pressures. Leaders, employees, and students
often respond to this stress with unhealthy and sometimes unconscious internal drives
to dominate and divide. The unmet
needs of individuals, organizations and cultural groups must be addressed first
so that instinctual impulses or the sympathetic nervous system arousal is not on
automatic flight or fight. The question is,
do you know the unmet needs of your leaders, employees or students?
