Do you have a bully at your workplace?

How to handle Bullies at Work.
By Rhoberta Shaler, PhD
Tuesday, 30th January 2007

RECOGNIZING A BULLY

A bully is a person who is habitually cruel to others she deems to be weaker than herself and uses browbeating language and behavior. Although we often think of bullies as big people dominating smaller folks, they are truly little people in every way.

• Their fear of being wrong is demonstrated by being know-it-alls. They are often condescending, patronizing or dismissive.
• Their fear of not being able to meet the needs of others causes them to never want to hear what others think, feel or want.
• Their inability and unwillingness to control their anger or their tongue causes them to make everything your fault as it could not possibly be theirs.
• Paradoxically, their self-esteem is too fragile to handle the possibility of being wrong.
• Their need to control you demonstrates their fear of being unable to control themselves.
• Their desire for power over others comes from the fear of being insignificant.
• Their attempt to boost their own flailing self-esteem is fed by treating others disrespectfully, thoughtlessly and off-handedly.
• Their fear of others causes them to assault character, focus on weaknesses and be the poster children for intimidation.

Unfortunately, these are all manifestations of a poor self-image coupled with lack of self-awareness and people skills.

HANDLING A BULLY

A good beginning when handling a bully is to begin with compassion. The last thing you may be considering is a compassionate approach. You truly want to beat him or her over the head with a blunt object and considerable force! Beginning with an understanding of the inherent weakness the bully is projecting and its likely causes will help you manage.
Bullies need to be managed because they cannot manage themselves, yet, everyone shies away from doing so. They are like errant teenagers allowed to run wild. No one wants to say no to them because of the consequences. That’s the operating system of the bully: don’t cross me or I will make your life miserable. They are miserable and they want to take everyone down with them.

Bullies appear self-confident, strong and impervious because they intimidate weaker people. They may even be so blind in their arrogance that they try to intimidate anyone as Leslie did with me. (That was not a wise move, Leslie.) If you vacillate, placate or submit to a bully or respond with fear or rage, she feels her point is proven: you are inferior and deserve to be abused, taken down or written off.

You have three choices when working with a bully: quit, get sick or manage yourself with the bully. Here are some tips:

• Redeem your self-esteem and establish strong boundaries. That is the only way to gain the respect of a bully.
• Be friendly, self-confident and calm. Never cower!
• Avoid a clash of wills. Keep things at the information, not the emotional, level.
• Listen well. Agree with him or her…in part…and put forward your views clearly.
• Be strong, firm, courteous and assertive.
• Endeavor to get the bully to consider alternative views while avoiding directly challenging him or her.
• Be well-prepared before you talk with a bully. Know your desired outcome of the conversation and stay focused.
• Be willing to acknowledge when s/he is right. A bully respects your ability to see his/her strengths.

IF YOU ARE THE MANAGER OF A BULLY….

Step up, show up and speak up...No matter what you give a bully, they want more. Why? Because what they want is to be stopped. It sounds paradoxical, doesn’t it? It is, however, true. The bully cannot stop his or her own behavior because it is being driven by deep fear. Often, only a resounding wake-up call from management has any hope of bringing about change.

One major tool a bully uses is making threats. Management has more clout than bullies; therefore, they have a bigger threat: dismissal. I have had managers tell me that they are afraid of firing a bully because s/he will likely cause problems, even sue. Yes, it could happen but that is something you have to be willing to risk if all other interventions fail. There are many other people in your company who are suffering from the bully’s behavior. They count more than one bully!

As a manager, you must ask yourself how much it is reasonable to invest in time, energy, resources, interventions, training, mediations, etc. before risking the threats of a bully about to be fired? Be pro-active and act as soon as you see bullying behaviors are frequent or habitual. Hopefully, that is unacceptable in your corporate culture.

Anger, threats, harassment, humiliation and ridicule are the tools of the workplace bully, just as they are on the playground. ...Her delight was in her ability to intimidate. Her joy was in having those around her dread the possibility she would erupt. She felt powerful and, unfortunately, no one was contradicting her.

....If you need to shore up your conflict and anger management skills, do so. The workplace is no place for a bully. The cost is too high.

© Rhoberta Shaler, PhD

In my opinion, bullies at work are actually very insecure people.

They don't have many friends and people they are close to. They lack confidence and deep down, they have many insecurities. So they take it out on other people who are weaker than them by being bullies - trying to put people down, trying to find ways to make other people look bad..Instead of doing their every day tasks at work and concentrating on their work, they prefer to spend their time trying to make themselves look good and other pple look bad.

There's really all sorts of people out there, people that you can't even imagine..While we can't do anything we can do to change their behaviour, there are still things we can do to protect ourselves from these people.