The impact of workplace bullying

I'd like to share one of my favourite videos on workplace bullying.

Australia has a specific definition of workplace bullying - that being repeated, unreasonable behaviour that creates a risk to health and safety. For those of you who like to go directly to the source, you can find that in s.789FD of the Fair Work Act 2009. This should be kept in mind when actioning bullying items in Australia but that aside, there are some very stimulating materials out there when you consider the matter in its broader sense. Some of these are below: 

One of the pieces I really enjoyed from the video is when it described key style differences between leaders and bullies. The punchline being, "bullying is not a leadership style, it is the opposite of leadership".

Workplace Leaders

Workplace Bullies

·    Leaders inspire and build functional teams.  ·    They value others, reward competence and encourage contribution.  ·    They set good examples, holding themselves to the same high standards they expect of others. ·    They aim for clarity, behave with integrity and maturity and take responsibility for their mistakes. ·    They let others work without interfering. ·    They resolve conflict.

·    Bullies erode and disrupt functional teams. ·    They may use team language but they’re not team players. ·    They devalue others, feel threatened by competent staff and stifle contribution. ·    They set bad examples and exhibit hypocrisy. ·    They pollute the workplace by projecting their own negative stuff onto others, creating confusion and uncertainty. ·    They lack integrity and maturity. ·    They lie and blame others to disguise their own failings. ·    They focus on petty fault finding. ·    They generate conflict and when their   bulling is rooted in personality problems, their behaviour is unlikely to change.

While we're on the subject of comparisons, I also want to share another piece I found particularly stimulating. Below is a table which explores the difference between Bullying and Harassment which I came across and understand to be the work of Tim Field, an activist in the area. 

While I don't necessarily fully agree with all of the points below, such as that it tends to be secret and without witnesses (I have seen examples to the contrary). I think this is a great piece that helps intellectually distinguish two terms that many people use interchangeably without really thinking about it.

Harassment	Bullying
Tends to focus on the individual because of what they are eg. Gender, race etc.	Anyone will do, especially if the bully feels threatened in some way.
Harassment is usually linked to sex, race, prejudice and discrimination etc.	These things play little part.
The person being harassed can usually identify it – particularly with the extent of awareness training conducted in defence.	The person being bullied may not realise it for weeks or months.
Most people can recognise harassment.	Few people recognise bulling.
Harassment will often reveal itself through the use of recognised offensive language.	Workplace bullying tends to fixate on trivial criticism and false allegations under performance. Swearing may be done in private.
The harasser often perceives the complainant as vulnerable to harassment or a challenge.	The complainant is seen as a threat and that must first be controlled and subjugated and, if that doesn’t work, eliminated.
Often harassment is for peer approval, bravado etc.	Apart from initiations, tends to be secret, behind closed doors and with no witnesses.
Harassment takes place both in and out of work.	Bullying takes place largely at work.
Harassment is often domination for superiority.	Bullying is for control of threat (of exposure of inadequacy.)
The harasser often lacks self discipline.	The bully is driven by envy (of abilities) and jealousy (of relationships)

Complaints - Separating facts from labels

I came across a worthwhile article in HR daily from a few weeks ago. "Handle complaints based on facts rather than labels." Check it out here.

The article focuses on a bullying complaint scenario but the ideas discussed can be expanded upon and used more generally; particularly when you're looking at solid communication techniques or being involved in any type of company investigation. Two points in particular I took from the article were:

1. Call out inappropriate behaviour straight away, when it is small. That way it is much less of an issue for an employee to acknowledge their behaviour and for them to apologise if required. It also helps create a culture where issues can resolve themselves rather than escalate and become much more serious.

2. When 'bullying' complaints to arise, move past the labels and work on the issue. Someone can claim that their being bullied and HR goes into serious formal investigation mode however when you dig down into the core issues of the complaint, it may just be a misunderstanding. The article gives a good example of annual leave being rejected. Jumping straight onto the bullying label can cause things to fester unnecessarily and can potentially sabotage a speedy resolution.

Unless you stay focused, it can be very easy to slip into accepting labels rather than facts, even if you ask clear and concise questions. Take for instance this example below:

Say to the employee: "When you say the person is being inappropriate; what are they saying? What are they doing? How often? How are they saying it?"

"If they say, 'They're rude to me. They always demean me', a lot of those things are labels. Ask, 'What do they do? When did they do it? Can you give me an example?'"

A personal example I can refer to is a complaint against an employee who was allegedly intoxicated. The labels thrown around in this instance were ones like drunk, alcoholic etc. However these were not facts and couldn’t form the basis of an investigation or decision. What could however was the behaviour of the employee, i.e. the facts. How was the employee acting? What did they do? What did they say? As long as you stay focused on the facts, and move past the labels you can be confident you will be making a decision on sound footing.