5 ways for dealing with the painful effects of Workplace Bullying
You may have experienced Corporate bullying or behaviors that display a subtle tone of aggression that left your head in a tailspin. I am sure you were left wondering what just happened.
If not experienced personally, you may have seen it targeted at someone else. Often, we are not sure how to deal with it and can doubt ourselves. If you are a victim, you will remember the instances when your heart sinks when contacted by the person. It can be at your personal time, especially on holidays or weekends, and it can instantly change the mood for those around you. You dread and absolutely avoid being left alone with them and have a distrust for their moods. This can demotivate even the most confident person. You can feel reluctant to go to work and to contribute meaningfully. The truth of the matter is that these behaviors still carry on in our Corporations and victims are left to deal with this on their own.
Workplace Bullying affects many people. Women, particularly, tend to be the greatest victims and these environments defuse all the effort being applied to Gender inclusion. While there seems to be an effort to attract female talent into industries, more work needs to be done to creating healthy working environments. Certain cultural norms perpetuate the ‘revolving door’ phenomenon of women making retention strategies futile. Workplace Bullying is real and needs to be tackled in all its ugliness. It can also be symptomatic of a broader organisational dysfunction.
This is a phenomenon that is often under-dressed, often guised under elegant titles like “workplace incivility” or cultural misfit and spoken about in low keys. Victims are often isolated and the attitude among peers is steering far from it, in order to not be affected.
Just what is Corporate Bullying
Dr. Carroll M. Brodsky, in The Harassed Worker, explains workplace bullying as repeated and persistent attempts by one person to torment, wear down, frustrate or get a reaction from another or others. Over time, it can overwhelm and render targets immobile and helpless. Oftentimes, the perpetrators hide behind seniority and networks, as well as company policies to perpetuate the abuse.
A Research paper published by Research Gate called Nightmares, Demons, and Slaves offers a very intriguing perspective on Workplace bullying. It describes how bullying can feel like a battle, water torture, nightmare, or noxious substance. Employees live in fear and tend to be disengaged in order to protect their feelings. This fear-based environment inhibits productivity and creativity in avoidance of possibly challenging the bullies’ views or position. My question is, if Corporations intend to drive optimal performance and values as captured on the walls, why would Workplace Bullying be permitted.
My own Bullying experience
Let me tell you about my encounter with a guy I will call Melvin. My new colleague, Melvin was a Harvard Graduate and held in very high esteem within the organisation. I was an experienced professional and had just joined the organisation from an external, highly reputable organisation. Melvin was, particularly, important to the organisation and was renowned for having won a few accolades and critical new business.
I had heard about Melvin’s rather erratic behavior but was not necessarily bothered because, in my head, he was attacking people who did not know what they were doing. Needless to say, I was assigned to Melvin’s team for an amazing project in the Pharmaceutical industry. We joined the team with a few other women and were excited by the prospects of being in the A Team.
Within a few days of joining the team, we would feel the sting of Melvin’s fangs. Our first assignment was to, individually, present research elements for a Pharmaceuticals positioning study. We were proud of the research gathered as well as ideas of how we felt the angle would be. Needless to say. he tore us all apart, but surprisingly, in our individual corners. This was Melvin in action, in public, he upheld perfect standards and was almost like-able. However, behind closed doors, he presented a monster that berated people. We suffered the first bruises of Melvin’s grip and we, ashamedly kept quiet for a while. This is the power of bullying, it makes victims ashamed of relating their experiences.
In time, we compared notes and realized it was happening to all of us. This behavior continued and we would later report this to our superiors, who in turn, directed us to Human Resources. This was, of course, futile. Human Resources had heard of many cases and exits before. They could not help us. This behavior continued and in a number of following instances, he would isolate the victims and tear them apart with vile words that he knew there would be no consequences for.
We would, eventually, all request to be moved from Melvin’s team except for the few other team members who continued, in a hope of meeting Melvin’s standards. We would later see many of them with red eyes and looking like zombies in the passages. The common joke in the corridors was that we all needed a Melvin Recovery Group.
The truth of the matter is that Melvin broke a lot of young professionals. The fact that his credentials were not even valid would surface and that on its own is like an egg in the face of the leaders who sat by and watched this happen. Some of the victims may have been vindicated after years of this victimization.
Some will never hear about the eventual fate of Melvin and will carry those scars for life.
Corporations and dealing with bullying
What was shocking with Melvin is that his behavior was a known factor. Those who stayed eventually resigned. HR just filed all the exist interviews, but nothing was ever done about it. It would take another eventuality to get rid of Melvin. The highest levels of the leadership team were aware of his bullying. At some point, I became vocal about it. When they noticed that I was, I was asked to lead the Transformation team.
This is the fallacy of Corporation. I was meant to sacrifice myself to deal with a problem they could not deal with. Secondly, it reduced this to be my problem and Melvin’s perhaps, ‘personality clash’. The third part is that it absolved them from dealing with the issue and they could point all other victims to a structure that is meant to be dealing with this problem. Lastly, no one wanted to face Melvin head-on, so I was meant to take on this stress that everyone was running away from.
I graciously let them down. Melvin would stay another 2 years and make it to Partner in the organisation before eventually leaving under strange circumstances. It turned out, the Harvard credentials were false. Melvin is but one of many examples of Corporate bullying, many of which were also dealt with in the same manner.
Our Expectation
As a leader, you might want to observe and pay attention to the bullies in your organization. Those bullies may be part of the reason employees are disillusioned with their prospects of finding meaning or purpose in their place of work. Corporations have the resources that are needed to address this. Protection of employees should be a prerogative of the Leadership as no employee willingly lifts up their hand to be a candidate for bullying. Targets feel reluctant to complain in fear of not being taken seriously. Some live in fear that the complaints may backfire.
Call for Action
- For the victim, always put yourself first. Always know, you are capable and can find another job in a healthier working environment.
- Corporations need to run Awareness Workshops in order to help and create a safe environment for employees to talk openly and deal with bullying. Bullying is not pretty and often is camouflaged at the most senior levels. It needs to be dealt with in all its ugliness.
- If bullying is pervasive across the business, Corporations need to perform Culture Audits in order to get to the bottom of it and understand the root course of such behavior.
- Victims and former victims need to make something of their experiences through talking, teaching and vocalizing these experiences.
- Also important is to join support groups and movements that are working to enact protective workplace legislation and adopt strict anti-bullying policies in order to retain top performers and cultivate healthy work environments.
