Bullying ruins the workplace

While waiting for a slow order at a fast-food restaurant, I observed the shift manager's style. No wonder the pace was glacial and the employees floated like zombies under barked orders. No wonder the sign in the front window screamed "Now Hiring."

The guy was a bully -- a garden-variety, kick-down-your-sand- castle kind of playground bully who ticked off and scared classmates in the fifth grade. Trouble was, he was a 20-something strutting peacock now.

Age, much less corporate rank, doesn't mellow some bullies. About once a month I hear from a worker who is desperate to flee a bully boss. Or I read a press release announcing winners of a worst-boss contest. Or a friend shares a browbeating moment from her workplace.

Bullying isn't just an annoying personality trait. It's a kind of violence. The International Crime Survey of the International Labor Organization polled workers about job-related bullying. In some of the 32 countries, about half of the workers questioned said they had been victims and three-fourths said they had witnessed it.

Bullying is most terrifying in a boss-subordinate relationship. The boss's control over assignments, raises and promotions puts power in his or her hands. But peer bullying also ruins workplaces.

Whoever the bully is, remember what psychologists say: Bullies are people in pain. For some reason -- often low self-esteem -- a bully needs to make others cower to puff up himself.

Here's the hard part: To squelch a bully, we're told to listen and maybe even commiserate a bit. The arrested development that's making the bully do what he or she does is a cry for attention.

Conflict resolution expert Erik Van Slyke says you can't outargue a bully. The bully's "fight or flight" mechanism kicks in. He goes on the defensive, and he'll win. He's had more practice.

Van Slyke, author of Listening to Conflict: Finding Constructive Solutions to Workplace Disputes, says you must figure out what the bully wants and needs.

Author Stanley Bing wrote in an Esquire magazine piece that understanding the bully doesn't mean toadying up to him. It does mean you can do things to ease the bully's "troubled way."

Better, I think, is to push back -- carefully -- enough that the bully doesn't pick on you. Bullies look for weak points and weaklings. You knew it when you were 10. It's still true. Resistance (compassionate resistance, according to Van Slyke) may divert the bully's attention.

Unfortunately, a bully may have lots of targets. The most effective power against that kind of bully is the power of the organization. An entire staff, or the right person up the chain of command, can stop mean and demeaning behavior.

What if the bully owns the place and there isn't anyone else with say or sway over him? If you're working in that reign of terror, your best course is to quit. Find a different job first. Then tell the bully and, if possible, his boss exactly why you left.

Remember that help-wanted sign hanging in the fast-food restaurant? I hope it hangs there a long, long time. I'll bet somebody from headquarters notices.

Copyright 1999
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