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Bullying: From the Playground to the Boardroom

August 30, 2006 

"Bullying (i.e., repeated acts and practices that are directed deliberately or unconsciously, but clearly cause humiliation, offence, and distress, and that interfere with job performance and/or cause an unpleasant work environment {Einarsen, 1999}) is typically proactive and frequently involve a continuous process of badgering of the victim (Rayner & Cooper, 1997).  Generally,  bullying acts can be categorized into one of seven groups of behavior: 1) 'calling-out' of a target in public for being different (stigmatizing) or because of some reason of susceptibility of the individual (not being in the 'in-group' to the bully due to past acts of 'aggression' of the bully (Andersson & Pearson, 1999); 2) using individuals as scapegoats to draw attention to the victims or in some instances, to reduce attention on the bully for a failure of the group; 3) sexual harassment of co-workers by someone with more power or a high position in the organization; 4) increasing work pressure and/or load to be performed by the victim; 5) isolating  targeted individuals which in many cases may take the form of preventing access to opportunities, withholding of information, or physically or socially isolating the individual; 6) destabilization of the workplace through the failure to give credit to the targeted individuals when due, repeated reminders of failures, or setting victims up to fail; and 7) physical abuse or harm or the targeted individual/group (Brodsky, 1976; Einarsen, 1999). 

Bullying can have a major negative impact on employees and firm performance (Wilson, 1991; Bid & Beechler, 1995; Zapf, Knorz, & Kulla, 1996; Tepper, Duffy, & Shaw, 2001).  Performance-based destruction caused by bullying can be grouped into four areas.  First, bullies can have a significant impact on the daily task-specific abilities of employees.  Second, ambitious employees, those employees who go the extra-mile for the firm, may have their generous behavior crushed.  Third, bullying creates strategic myopia for the firm.  Finally, bullying can actually work as organizational cancer, eventually killing the entire firm.

There appears to have been a confluence of dynamics taking place over the last couple of decades that have accelerated the rate and severity of bullying activities in the workplace (Sheehan, Barker, & Rayner, 1999).  First the pressure of unprecedented change in business (e.g., globalization, hyper-competition, consolidation, outsourcing, increased regulation of business, an increase in the rate of technological changes, etc.) has created a level of uncertainty which has been described by some authors as 'competing on the edge of chaos' (Hamel & Prahalad, 1994; Hitt, Keats, & DeMarie, 1998).  Second, significant time pressure on managers to accomplish tasks that traditionally would have taken months to complete must be completed in just weeks.  Third, diversity in the workplace is growing.  While the virtues of increased diversity in the workforce are difficult to question, accentuating the differences among employees in an organization creates natural divisions that can lead to bullying activities.  Fourth, downsizing, or 'rightsizing' has left many organizations with uncertain cultures where the 'survivors' are constantly looking over their shoulders, waiting for the next 'ax to fall.'  Fifth, given the downsizing of the organization, middle-management has been the target of manpower reductions.  The sixth and final dynamic that encourages bullies to act out in an organization is poorly defined cultural norms or mores seen in many global and domestic organizations today (Luzio-Lockett, 1995). 

In an effort to gain a proactive perspective on bullying in organizations, three different dimensions of the bullying event need to be analyzed: 1) the characteristics of environments that encourage or do not discourage bullying activities; 2) the characteristics of the perpetrator, a.k.a. the bully, and 3) the characteristic of the victims of the bullying acts. 

The culture of an organization can have an explicit as well as implicit impact on bullying, both from its initiation as well as to the longevity of the activity in the organization (Einarsen & Raknes, 1997; Einarsen, 1999).  The degree of 'bullying culture' an organization possesses depends on: 1) standard operating procedures; 2) norms of behavior; 3) rules of conduct; 4) values held as being important; 5) symbols and totems in the organization representing things of value and importance; 6) taboos, both symbolic as well as real; 7) heroes or key personalities who define the nature of the organization; and 8) the daily climate or civility within the organization (Schien, 1992; 1999; Bond, 1994). 

There are four prominent factors that have been identified as promoting bullying behavior in a work environment, those include: 1) deficiencies in leadership behavior - inadequate oversight or lack of training of supervisors or managers in how to identify and manage bullying behavior; 2) deficiencies in work design; 3) a socially exposed position of the victim; 4) low morale standard in the department.

There would appear to be three leading biological 'causes' of aggression and the potential for being a bully as an adult: 1) brain related issues, 2) mutation of specific genes, 3) overly developed immune system.  A more disturbing rational for individuals becoming adult bullies in the workplace is that they were bullied as children (Espelage, Bosworth, & Simon, 2004). 

A convenient starting point in evaluating the common denominators of bullied individuals is grouping them into low self-esteem individuals versus high self-esteem individuals (Schwartz, Dodge, & Coie, 1993).  This assumption seems reasonable and more or less easy to detect, but it is more explanatory to subdivide the self-esteem concept into five components: 1) The individual's cognitive ability relative to others in the organization; 2) The emotional stability and maturity of the individual in comparison to peers; 3) The professional and personal accomplishments of the potential victim; 4) The character of the targeted individual and if the individual is respected and supported by peers in the organization; and 5) the physical characteristics that may differentiate the individual from others (Aquino, 2000; Aquino & Byron, 2002).  There is one group of bullying victims that does not fit the stereotypical profile of the weak and unconnected individual.  It can be another strong individual who competes with the bully for control of the formal or informal organization. 

The organizational 'solution' must address all three dimensions of the problem (the environment, the bully, and the bullied) to be effective.  To that end, the following systemic approach to the growing bully frenzy in business is presented.

I.                    The Environmental Issues that Need to be Addressed:

·        Objective determination of the present organizational climate and the employees'' perspective on bullying activity levels and severity in the organization.

·        Assessment of present formal operating procedures relative to dysfunctional bullying activities in the organization.

·        Identification of the specific location of bullying activities in the organization cultures across all departments, locations, or managers.

·        Development of training specifically directed at countering bullying activities which should be provided to bullies as well as to the personnel in the departments/locations that have been identified as having a higher incidence of bullying activities.

·        Purposeful assessment of management's past actions taken relative to bullying activities within the organization in a given time period (e.g., last year or last 5 years).

·        Development of a formal, nonjudgmental reporting mechanism to be used by those who are bullied or individuals who witness bullying acts against others.

Continuous monitoring of the bullying policies, processes, and procedures to insure their successful implementation and updating.

II.                 Issues that Need to be Addressed with Existing as well as Potential Bullies:

·        First and foremost, put selection process in place that reduce the likelihood of hiring a bully.

·        Restructure the job requirements of the bully to reduce his/her direct contact with vulnerable groups/individuals in the organization.

·        Assign additional training and awareness coaching to the  identified bully of their past behaviors and the resulting impact on the victims as well as on the 'observers' of bullying events.

·        Redesign the job to reduce the bully's supervision responsibilities and increase the non-personnel dimensions of their position.

·        Provide professional counseling for the bully to allow him/her to gain insights into the impact of their behaviors as well as the impact on the victim/'observers.'

·        Have the willingness and authority to terminate chronic bullies from the organization.

III.               Issues that Need to be Addressed with the Bullied Individuals:

·        Complete an assessment of victim's self-esteem dimensions (e.g., cognitive, emotional, achievement, character, and physical) and develop training.

·        Develop a support mechanism for those in the organization who are potential targets of bullies to help preempt the bully's attack.

·        Establish a review mechanism that can be used by the victim without fear of retaliation.

·        Provide programs to victims/potential victims that demonstrate the options open to them relative to bullying activities.

·        Have the willingness to support the potential victim before, during, and after a bullying event(s).

·        Give the victim the opportunity to be relocated in the organization to reduce/eliminate direct supervision of or contact with the documented bully.

People, for social environmental and biological reasons, need to dominate others and the workplace provides them with a location that, if not properly managed, allows them to exercise their need for control.  The reasons for the tolerance of these dysfunctional behaviors is a little more difficult to pin down, but none the less, unless proactively addressed, bullying will remain one of the hidden secrets of constrained success in many organizations (Harvey, Heames, Richey, & Leonard, 2006, p. 1-11)."

Reference:    Harvey, M.G., Heames, J.T., Richey, R.G., & Leonard, N.; (2006). Bullying: From the Playground to the Boardroom.  Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies, Vol. 12, No. 4. 

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Created: 2007-08-28, Updated: 2009-02-17