.jpg)
When a bully operates in leadership roles or in workplace or school settings, triads form: the bully, the victim, and the bystander. Bullies have their supporters and followers, victims seek their support and alliances, and bystanders, who are the majority, seek others to help analyze the injustice. Within each triad, out-groups form among members who disrupt productivity and efforts to create an inclusive workplace or school setting. -Dr. Stewart
Bullies are often
described as someone being different or a bit odd in their childhood,
adolescence, or early adulthood, having an enduring pattern of identity crises,
chaotic self-direction, lack of empathy, hypersensitivity to criticism, and
intimacy. These fragmented artifacts of various personality disorders confuse
school administrators, educators, and workplace leaders because the bully can
also be charismatic individuals waiting to save the day on their terms.
School-related acts of violence or mass school or workplace shootings involve
individuals who exhibited these warning signs in a consistent and enduring
pattern. However, leaders and administrators dismissed the symptoms under the
labels of someone being different or a bit odd. -Dr. Stewart
Finding the Good in the
Workplace Bully
An
Organizational Approach to Workplace Bullying
How do you identify the
misuse of power? It depends on the organizational structure, mission, and
values, as well as how acts of aggression and abuse of power are labeled. Some
organizations would not recognize a bully rising to power because bullies exude magnificence while riding on coworkers' skills, competencies, and talents to
save the day. Other organizations would sense that something was wrong because
of a shift in focus away from the organization's mission and vision, and because of decreased employee satisfaction and loyalty.
Finding
the Good in the Workplace Bully
An organizational change toward a healthier workplace culture may include the revision of policies and procedures, job descriptions, orientation, training, and annual training, which should readdress the organization's mission and values while declaring the organizational definition of bullying. Without an organizational definition of bullying and all its degrees, cognitive reconstruction occurs within the workplace environment that may justify all the dysfunctional behaviors of the bully triad until a devastating violent act occurs. Policies and procedures, job descriptions, and annual training should address the organizational definition of bullying so that bullying is considered abnormal or at least recognized as soon as it occurs.
Dr. Debra Stewart
Finding
the Good in the Workplace Bully
An
Organizational Approach to Workplace Bullying
.jpg)
Meta-analysis of aggregate health data may provide information that health promotion administrators need to compare and contrast different systems for correlation and effectiveness. This analysis may reveal that the workplace does not have a bully prevention and management program. Organizations collect data such as absenteeism, accident and injury, retention, employee health risk assessments, and employee wellness program utilization. Research has found that an improvement in one of these reporting areas will yield favorable results in other areas of health and wellness reporting. If the workplace culture supports acts of bullying, then the participation and energies devoted to organizational and employee wellness will also decline. It is essential to look for a correlation between reports and incremental improvements to find a link that will help health promotion administrators and employers find the total value of their wellness programming and improve the economy of effort.
Character assassination is a form of bullying because it is a deliberate attempt to destroy someone's credibility and reputation. In psychology, character assassination begins when the person is shamed, feels inferior, threatened, or is an insecure, narcissistic personality type. Character assassination involves triangulation instead of direct communication, where gossip, misuse of power and authority, manipulation of the truth, deceit, groupthink, double-speak, spreading of rumors, unhealthy egotism, and narcissism are used to defame and cast doubt on someone's morals and integrity.
Dr. Debra Stewart
Finding
the Good in the Workplace Bully
An
Organizational Approach to Workplace Bullying
Managers and
administrators need to lift their gaze above the bullying event to determine
the damage or aftermath of the bully event. For example, are employee survey
ratings poor or perhaps avoided altogether? An analysis of the social
environments in the workplace and participation rates in team-building and
collaborative projects in the workplace will be another factor that might
indicate that the organization has more bystanders than initially thought. The
bystander effect suggests that the more witnesses there are concerning an
emergency or adverse event, the less likely individuals will step forward and
help. When a bully is left unchecked, bystanders feel that their intervention
would be too costly on a personal level or so insignificant to promote change
that the stress of remaining an apathetic bystander is considered a necessary
tradeoff. The longer the situation goes without healthy organizational culture
change, the more toxic and unstable the work environment will become.
Everyone has bullying tendencies when they feel threatened or have unmet needs that are difficult to resolve. The five-factor personality traits model comprises five categories: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. The five-factor personality traits may foster great leaders and compassionate community helpers when balanced with other social checks and norms.
However, the five-factor model's extremes in personality expression may give rise to antisocial personality disorders that often describe and explain bully-type behaviors. Some bullies remain in this personality phase across their lifespans. However, an unhappy bully is a person who does feel regret and remorse and is morally engaged. In contrast, a sociopath or psychopath shows a disregard for others and fails to feel remorse and guilt. The good news is that if you are a bully and feel remorse or guilt over your interactions with others or desire to change to a more balanced combination of the five-factor personality traits, you are probably a bully who can change. Sometimes change is easy with reflection and positive mentors, but bullies may also need to seek professionals in the mental health field to help manage their feelings and unmet needs.
Dr. Debra Stewart
Finding
the Good in the Workplace Bully
Victims waste time at work and home building a defense against the bully's abuse, politicking for support, and just running scenarios in their minds to form a corrective plan of action. Behaviors such as these interfere with productivity and employee motivation and eventually leave the employee with a sense of diminished self-efficacy and self-worth. Also, creative energies suffer because victims are busy trying to fulfill unmet needs and protect other marginalized victims. Bully triads consisting of the bully, the bystander, and the victim are known to create silo mentalities where information and resources are restricted to reduce the chance of interference from the bully. Silo mentalities are behaviors that are great time wasters for other more productive teams because of the limited communication that it creates between departments, divisions, and partnerships. Start your bully prevention program today!
Finding the Good in the
Workplace Bully
An
Organizational Approach to Workplace Bullying
Organizational
administrators often stand ready to adapt to costly new management and
leadership programs to offset the rising cost of doing business in a toxic
environment. Often leaders enlist consultants to diagnose organizational
culture and produce treatment plans filled with cognitive-behavioral approaches
that are vague and short-lived. While some consulting expense is necessary,
corporate leaders may miss the most accessible remedies for toxic work
environments and the escalating cost of doing business within an industry, such
as the methods found in An Organizational Approach to Workplace Bullying.
Finding the Good in the
Workplace Bully
An
Organizational Approach to Workplace Bullying
Examining workplace
culture for bullies and conducting needs assessment surveys will lessen blaming
and finger-pointing, as they identify problems objectively, allowing managers to impartially analyze the data and reformulate areas that seem to breed bullying-like behaviors. However, it is essential to examine assessments and
surveys individually to ensure that data collection methods do not exacerbate dominance issues related to language, disability, or cultural
challenges. Reducing negative communication and looking for framed practices to
create dominance and shame will mitigate the triggers that stimulate bullying-type aggressive behaviors. -Dr. Stewart
Specific industries and positions foster aggressive communication because of the sheer emotional and physical demands of the job. Often, leaders and employees have never been
given the tools to manage adrenaline, fear, anxiety, and failure. As
communication degrades in the workplace, the loudest and most fearful often
rise to power. Communication training can help individuals understand their
communication styles and those of their coworkers, and with skill development,
employees and leaders can learn to state their needs respectfully.
Being bullied and
performing bullying acts are viewed differently depending on culture, socioeconomic
standing, industry, education, gender, political forces, religion, geographic region, and so much more. Cross-culturally experiencing a bullying act
causes pain and discomfort; however, the degree of insult may vary depending
upon these factors. The same is true for defining and labeling a bullying event.
Therefore, global policies for bullying management and prevention are impractical. A situational approach must be taken to determine and manage the effects of bullying events and bully triad interactions. Bullying management and prevention are dynamic and require active management and preventive programs to promote growth and development and benevolent human interaction
throughout the life course.
