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The Complete Guide to Understanding, Controlling, and Stopping Bullies and Bullying at Work: A Guide for Managers, Supervisors, and Employees

Copyright © 2007 Atlantic Publishing Group, Inc.
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ISBN 13: 978-1-60138-236-8 • ISBN 10: 1-60138-236-7

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Kohut, Margaret R.

The complete guide to understanding, controlling, and stopping bullies & bullying at work : a complete guide for managers, supervisors, and co-workers / Margaret R. Kohut ; forward by Tina Y. Bryant.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN-13: 978-1-60138-236-8 (alk. paper)

ISBN-10: 1-60138-236-7 (alk. paper)

1. Bullying in the workplace--Prevention. 2. Violence in the workplace--Prevention. I. Title.

HF5549.5.B84K64 2008

658.3’8--dc22

2008005870

LIMIT OF LIABILITY/DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY: The publisher and the author make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this work and specifically disclaim all warranties, including without limitation warranties of fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales or promotional materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for every situation. This work is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional services. If professional assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought. Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for damages arising here from. The fact that an organization or Web site is referred to in this work as a citation and/or a potential source of further information does not mean that the author or the publisher endorses the information the organization or Web site may provide or recommendations it may make. Further, readers should be aware that Internet Web sites listed in this work may have changed or disappeared between when this work was written and when it is read.

 

 

A few years back we lost our beloved pet dog Bear, who was not only our best and dearest friend but also the “Vice President of Sunshine” here at Atlantic Publishing. He did not receive a salary but worked tirelessly 24 hours a day to please his parents.

Bear was a rescue dog who turned around and showered myself, my wife, Sherri, his grandparents Jean, Bob, and Nancy, and every person and animal he met (well, maybe not rabbits) with friendship and love. He made a lot of people smile every day.

We wanted you to know a portion of the profits of this book will be donated in Bear’s memory to local animal shelters, parks, conservation organizations, and other individuals and nonprofit organizations in need of assistance.

– Douglas and Sherri Brown

PS: We have since adopted two more rescue dogs: first Scout, and the following year, Ginger. They were both mixed golden retrievers who needed a home.

I have been thinking about this book for more than two years. Throughout a previous book on school bullying, the issues of workplace bullying were never far from my thoughts because, like the case studies of true accounts by others found within this book, I too was the target of the cruelest and most relentless workplace bullying imaginable. Before my medical separation, I was an officer in a branch of the U.S. Armed Forces. Until my last assignment, I had an exemplary work record with the expected bumps and rough spots along the way; yet my overall job performance was something with which I could be pleased. I served my country with honor, dedication and dignity, ever attempting to polish my leadership and clinical skills.

From the day I reported to my new squadron commander at my final assignment, until the last day of my service, I was mob bullied by my group commander, squadron commander, the chief of medical staff, my immediate supervisor, and three of my subordinates. My unforgiveable sins were that I was less than perfect, I had (and still have) an informal and slightly eccentric leadership and personality style, I had never in my long career had a patient complaint unlike others, and I do not take myself too seriously; life without humor is no life at all. Three years previous to this, I suffered an episode of major depression after the suicide of my terminally ill father. This, by all later events, was unacceptable to my new superiors. Worse, I suffered from serious back pain after a duty-related incident in 2004 that required quite a bit of medical intervention.

Looking back, I believe I became a target of workplace bullying because at least one of my military superiors had a well-known history of bullying subordinates. Immediately upon my arrival at my last assignment, I witnessed him treating another member of the squadron, my subordinate, in a similar manner. Once I caught on to what was happening and tried to intervene on the target’s behalf, it was too late; too late for her, and only the beginning of eighteen months of being mob bullied myself. The ending was not a happy one; I fought back for a long time, but my superior had a knack of recruiting others to pursue me as well. My long years of service ended, according to the “official version,” for medical reasons. The real reason is because I could no longer find the strength to fight back. To this day, I do not know if I was mob bullied because these other individuals truly had a poor opinion of me or if they were involved due to fear of not going along with the “main bully.”

With no axe to grind, I include this forward to inform readers of this book that not only did a very great deal of research form the basis of the book, but also that I have personally experienced workplace bullying of the worst sort. However, let this not blind readers to the heroic dedication of those who serve and proudly wear the uniforms of their country, putting their lives at risk every day for America’s interests and way of life. What happened to me was not indicative of the character of the overwhelming majority of military personnel.

If I am passionate about ending workplace bullying, it is not for me alone, but for the millions of Americans who experience similar, if not worse, treatment by bosses, coworkers, and subordinates. Let it end now.

Margaret R. Kohut

Table of Contents

Introduction

“Don’t cry out loud,
Just keep it inside, learn how to hide your feelings,
Fly high and proud, and if you should fall,
Remember you almost had it all.”

—Performed by Melissa Manchester

In America alone, an estimated 23 million Americans will encounter bullying in the workplace. Most bullying is never documented or reported because until early in the new millennium, it was not fully recognized as a pervasive problem. If it was reported, it was most often dismissed as the complaints of a “disgruntled employee.” Today, the tide is rapidly turning; bullied employees are weary of that label and are taking action to make themselves heard on every level from grassroots organizations to local and federal courthouses. No longer the “silent epidemic,” workplace bullying is being recognized as the insidious national disgrace that it is. Employees from all parts of America’s workforce and from all walks of life are, like the eccentric newsman in the movie Network, screaming “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!” No longer keeping it all inside and hiding their daily excruciating emotional pain, America’s bullied workers are proudly and confidently pushing the “delete” key on harassing bosses, coworkers, and subordinates through their courageous and outspoken campaign to tell the nation what has happened to them and helping to make sure that bullying in our workplaces ends with the greatest alacrity.

“In America, if you say it doesn’t exist, you can keep your head in the sand. We’re in total denial while bullying is ripping people’s lives and health to shreds” (Namie, 2007). Workplace bullies are very skilled at what they do. They can create such internal chaos and turmoil in an employee’s soul that the employee loses all perspective and sense of self; he or she begins to believe that what the bully says about them is true. Day after endless day, if employees are constantly barraged with public and/or private unwarranted criticism, poor performance reports, lack of promotions, sarcasm, accusations of incompetence, threats, and isolation, they will eventually wonder if perhaps these allegations of their lack of productive work are true. What happens next is self-doubt, depression, irrational means of attempting to cope such as alcohol or drug abuse, fury, and in far too many cases, incidents of attempted or completed suicide or fatal workplace violence.

Then comes the attempts to shift blame solely upon the stricken employee. “He’s always been depressed and unstable.” “Well she’s an alcoholic, what do you expect?” Yet, a closer forensic behavioral analysis of a critical incident in the workplace very often reveals that the employee had no previous mental health history or substance abuse history; the critical incident occurred after prolonged and relentless workplace bullying.

Human nature has idiosyncrasies that are not easily explained. For some reason, we secretly admire bullies for their boldness, ruthlessness in getting what they want, seeming lack of conscience, and intelligent tactics. Historical bullies like Alexander the Great, the Mongol Khans, and a Roman Emperor or two fascinate and repel us at the same time. We forget George Santayana’s truism that “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” and we do. Modern-day bullies like Adolf Hitler and Saddam Hussein cease to fascinate us when reality closes in and the atrocities build. On a much smaller scale, we still seem to have this unspeakable admiration for petty tyrants while at the same time recognizing their actions as wrong, cruel, and in some cases, actionable in civil lawsuits or even criminal prosecution.

What about Hollywood’s portrayal of bullies? It is safe for us to laugh at their moronic antics because we know that by the end of the movie or TV show, the bully is going to get what is coming to him or her and the “good guy” always wins in the end. Even children love fantasy bullies like Lex Luthor and the Joker because Superman and Batman always show up to save the world. Perhaps, this is one reason why workplace bullies are so overlooked; we think they can never keep up their actions for very long because, sooner or later, the hero is going to come and put an end to the whole mess.

This does not happen, according to 23 million American workers. No heroes, rescue, nor vanquishing of their bullying tormentors. To cope, they dare not cry out loud or show weakness. Tears of despair and tears of rage are saved for the long and lonely nights. Workplace bullies are like jackals; when they sense that their prey is weakening, they mercilessly stalk their victims until they prevail. Plus, it is the employee who is vanquished, often damaged beyond healing. When we ask ourselves why workplace bullying continues in today’s small businesses and large corporations, the answer is clear: It continues because we allow it.

Today, as workplace bullying becomes increasingly documented and reported, there are several things that we know about this practice:

• • Workplace bullying has many similarities to school bullying and domestic violence.
• • Bullied employees have no “protected status” unless they are minorities or disabled.
• • Bullying creates a “pressure cooker” environment that has resulted in workplace violence and other incidents.
• • The label of being a “disgruntled employee” prevents targets of bullying from being taken seriously.
• • Up to 80 percent of workplace bullying is done by bosses.

This book explores the aspects of workplace bullying, from the definition and scope of the problem up to and including ways to end this no-longer-silent epidemic. The case studies that are contained herein are true accounts in all respects, except that, for the purpose of confidentiality, all identifying information has been altered. In Inferno, Dante Alighieri wrote that the inscription over the gates to the deepest circle of hell reads, “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.” When 23 million Americans feel this way about going to their jobs each day and simply trying to earn a living, something is greatly amiss in our society that, for our betterment, and the future leaders and employees of our workplaces, must be corrected. Until, together, we too can say, “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore,” we cannot call ourselves a truly noble and civilized nation.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Defining the Problem

Defining Workplace Bullying

Workplace bullying is defined as the repeated mistreatment of one employee who is targeted by one or more employees with a malicious mix of humiliation, intimidation and sabotage of performance. It includes being ridiculed in the presence of other employees, being lied about to others, inducing feelings of always being on guard, not being able to focus on work tasks, loss of self-confidence on the job, out-of-control anxiety, being continually left “out of the loop,” and being repeatedly criticized without just cause. Workplace bullies use their authority to undermine, frighten, or intimidate another person, often leaving the victim feeling fearful, powerless, incompetent, and ashamed.

“Every time the phone rang, I jumped. When a new e-mail appeared, I cringed in anticipation of yet another twist of the knife.”

—Susan Futterman
When You Work for a Bully

Most targets of workplace bullying actually enjoy their jobs; were it not for the constant emotional pain and stress that results from repeated bullying, their work lives would be pleasant and productive. The bully makes this impossible through such tactics as reducing the employee’s scope of authority and initiative, overloading the employee with an impossible amount of work and then chastising him or her for failing to complete it quickly, diminishing the employee’s workload to menial and unrewarding tasks, constant and unwarranted oversupervision, and drastically distorting or even fabricating so-called facts about the incompetence of the employee’s work performance.

Bullying rarely begins with a “bang.” It tends to be a subtle process of intimidation and criticism rather than erupting in a single event. The target does not realize what is happening or what lies ahead. It is easy for the employee to say, “Oh, I’m sorry; my mistake. I’ll fix it” early in the bully’s game. Yet, as the weeks and months go by, the bullying not only continues, but gradually intensifies to the point of being relentless. Still, the target may not realize the true nature of the bully’s actions, thinking instead that he is solely responsible for failing on the job. The bully excludes her from important meetings, condescends or patronizes her, withholds necessary information about tasks, arbitrarily changes work deadlines, bombards him with memos, e-mails and phone calls that focus on petty matters, denies him needed training, refusing to grant routine time off, habitually does not return calls or respond to memos, interrupts his work and makes unflattering — and often untrue — comments to others about his work performance. The workplace bully has no allegiance to the concept of “praise in public, criticize in private”; regardless of whether the employee is present or not, the bully will criticize in both public and private, growing ever bolder in this practice as time goes by.

Workplace bullies focus their predation on minor flaws in an employee’s work, but never recognize, in public or private, good work, productivity, and the overall value of the employee to the organization. Competent managers are adept at tempering negative feedback about an employees work with praise for her positive accomplishments. The bully may offer a backhanded compliment by commenting, “Thanks for staying late to complete this, but it is unsatisfactory and needs to be reworked.” The “but…” is an ever-present component of what the bully regards as a compliment. The competent, benign manager would say, “Thanks for staying late to complete this; I really appreciate your extra efforts. Let’s set aside some time to discuss how I can help you improve your organization skills so you won’t have to stay late anymore.”

Many consider the voices of Drs. Ruth and Gary Namie to be America’s premier and foremost experts on workplace bullying. Dr. Ruth Namie, a clinical psychologist, experienced intense bullying by a former supervisor. Describing workplace bullying as “a national scandal,” her trauma resulted in the Namies’ establishment in 1998 of the Campaign Against Workplace Violence, the Workplace Bullying Trauma Institute, and, in 2000, they hosted the first U.S. Workplace Bullying Conference. They define workplace bullying as the repeated, malicious, health-endangering mistreatment of one employee by one or more employees. It consists of psychological violence and a cruel mix of verbal and strategic assaults that prevent the bullied employee from performing well on the job. Workplace bullying, say the Namies, begins with a one-on-one aggression, but gradually escalates as the predominant bully engulfs others into mob bullying the targeted employee. It includes all types of workplace mistreatment; all harassment is bullying if it harms the target, intentionally or not.

Drs. Ruth and Gary Namie identify some startling and ominous statistics about workplace bullying:

• • 80 percent of bullying targets are women
• • 82 percent of targets ultimately lose their jobs
• • 81 percent of bullies are bosses/managers
• • 50 percent of bullies are women; 50 percent are men
• • 98 percent of bullying is witnessed or known by other employees

Robert L. Mueller, an attorney, author, and expert on workplace bullying, notes it can rise to the level of a civil tort, or cause of action in a civil lawsuit for intentional (author’s emphasis) infliction of emotional distress. This definition differs slightly, but significantly, from the Namies’ definition; it indicates that while bullying behavior encompasses intentional or unintentional harm to the target, only intentional harm is legally actionable. Courts, according to Mueller, look to the intention behind bullying harassment, not just the trauma and other damages that result from it. In addition, for a targeted plaintiff to prevail, the bully’s harassment must be “severe or pervasive.”

Author Susan Futterman echoes Mueller’s viewpoint that although workplace bullying is cruel and obnoxious, it is not illegal unless it evolves into sexual contact, physical violence, or is directed towards employees who have a “protected” status under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Americans with Disabilities Act, or the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. Bullying and the law will be fully addressed in a subsequent chapter.

“My mama says that life is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you’re gonna get.”

—Stan Winston
Forrest Gump

Defining the Scope of the Problem

We as a society should try to understand difficult, toxic people. We are not wrong, they are. They are the ones who need to change, not us. They need to conform to society’s expectations and standards of behavior. Who cares if we understand them or not?

This not-so-rhetorical question has sincere probative value; to require changes in the behavior of another person, we need to understand why they do what they do. We need not understand workplace bullies because we feel sorry for their pathology, but this type of understanding helps us, not them. In addition, we must try to understand toxic bullies because, like it or not, we will meet them on a regular basis.

A Bullying Boss

• Deviates from the employer’s designated mission and

• Pursues his/her own mission for power and control over a subordinate employee

• With behaviors regarded by the community as anti-social.

— Robert L. Mueller, JD

Forrest’s mama gave him some very wise advice in the novel and movie, Forrest Gump. We can extend this very sage wisdom into our American workplaces: When we accept a new job, we never know what we are going to get. We wonder if our boss, coworkers, and subordinates become clever, pleasant, focused on teamwork and the mission of the organization, or we will face the most vicious individual and mob bullying of our workday lives. There is no way we can predict what our future workplace environment — our box of chocolates — will be. There are some statistics that can help us understand why we need to consider the scope of workplace violence.

• • One in six employees experience workplace bullying in their lifetimes.
• • In terms of gender, at least 50 percent of workplace bullies are female.
• • Eighty percent of bullying targets are female.
• • Four out of five minority employees will encounter workplace bullying.

So wide is the scope of workplace bullying, that it has significant hidden costs to our overall workforce and economics:

• • Reduced productivity, leading to reduced organizational profits
• • Destabilization of the national economy
• • Higher absenteeism and stress-related health problems, leading to increased health insurance costs
• • Increased possibility of expensive court litigation
• • Low morale among workers, leading to lack of motivation to produce
• • High employee turnover rates
• • Increased training costs for “replacement” employees
• • Heightened potential for workplace violence

Several times in this book, attention will be called to the statistical evidence that 23 million Americans experience workplace bullying within their work lifetimes. This figure is based upon a 1999 study at Wayne State University. Targets of bullying usually feel isolated and alone; they believe that they are at fault for incompetent job performance, not realizing that millions of American workers have experienced similar workplace circumstances. Bullies are adept in making their prey feel like everything they experience on the job is their own fault. If these targets were to examine national statistics, they would learn that the scope of workplace bullying is pervasive from coast to coast.

Case Study: Lea

Lea was a junior employee, age 23, in a major corporation; she joined the workforce a year earlier after specialized training. Lea was younger than most of the other company employees, but was eager to please her superiors and acquire training in her field of expertise. A few months after Lea joined the company, more senior coworkers began to critique her errors in job performance.

“I don’t think they took into account that I was new, ten years younger than them, and was struggling to learn my job,” Lea said. “They held me to standards that I couldn’t even understand, much less complete.” Lea was frequently counseled about her job performance by her immediate supervisor, who sincerely attempted to help her improve her skills. Nonetheless, Lea’s higher-level supervisor targeted her for inadequate job performance while also denying her training opportunities to improve her performance on the job.

“I couldn’t do anything right,” said Lea. “There was one senior employee that took every opportunity to point out my shortcomings instead of helping me improve my job performance. Nothing I did was right. This person constantly complained about every mistake I made, and blew it out of proportion. She told other people that I should be fired because I drink and gamble, which is a total lie. She spread this lie all over the office just because my car was often parked at a local bar that has slot machines. If anybody had asked me, I could have told them that this place is where I play darts with my league several nights a week. I don’t drink when we play because I have to drive home. See how everything I do is misinterpreted and then spread all over the place?” Lea discovered that when a new supervisor in her area was hired, her higher-level supervisor told the new boss that “I need to tell you about our problem employee,” meaning Lea. She felt as if she would never have a fresh start on the job. Her new immediate supervisor objected to Lea’s treatment on the job, but was silenced by the “brass” of the organization.

As the weeks and months passed, Lea began to doubt herself and her abilities, and lost hope that she would ever be able to please her superiors. She lost self-confidence and became emotionally depressed, having received no positive feedback of any kind on her job performance. Eventually, her higher-level superiors initiated job termination actions upon her, and her immediate supervisor’s interventions were ignored. Lea was involuntarily terminated from her job.

“I know I’m young, and I know I’m new. I just wish I had been given a chance for training and to do tasks that I knew how to do. These people made up their minds about me before I even got started, and they never let up for one day,” said Lea. “They made fun of me and called me their “problem child.” How do you think that made me feel? I did my best, but nothing I did was good enough. Every time I got called into the higher-level boss’s office, I knew it would be bad. My real boss tried to help me, but was threatened into silence. No one could help me. I lost my job, I have a crappy employment history and I don’t know just where I’ll go from here. Nowhere, I suppose. I don’t want to go through this again.”

Although this book specifically addresses workplace bullying in America, the term was coined in Great Britain more than a decade ago. The U.S. and the UK are certainly not alone in facing this abominable behavior; nearly every industrialized nation on the globe has brought workplace bullying into the light of day, including Canada, Mexico, India, Russia, France, Argentina, Ireland, Sweden, Australia, and Japan. Although it may be somewhat reassuring to note that workplace bullying is not merely a matter of “Americans acting badly,” it is also sobering to realize that the scope of this issue is worldwide. Nevertheless, we cannot be the masters of another’s homeland, as an increasing number of Americans are demanding that bullying in their workplaces be exposed and that it comes to an end by any legal means necessary.

Table of Contents

Chapter 2: Profiles of Workplace Bullies