October 15, 9:35 am
Workplace bullying needs to disappear
When we spend one third (or more) of our lives at work, it ought to be a place where we feel productive and useful. Accordingly, when workplace bullying disappears a lot of people will step forward and contribute more than they do now.
I’m guessing one reason bullying has been difficult to eradicate is that we try to do it all at once. So, like any other problem, perhaps it’s more effective to chip away at it. We can start with a common workplace bully behavior: Yelling.
Essentially, yelling is childish, and most bullies know it. What’s more, many bullies will stop yelling if tell them it’s unacceptable to you.
How’s this:
To all the Type A / Driver / Commanders out there who think the best way to reach deadlines and goals is to yell at employees, allow me to speak for everyone you’ve ever yelled at: Stick it in your ear. There’s only one reason to yell at anyone, and that’s if a person is in the way of physical harm. Any yelling should be to catch their attention so they can avoid the danger.
Okay, maybe that approach is a bit brash, but I needed to get that off my chest.
It might be easier just to stay calm and say, “stop yelling at me.” Remember, bullies know yelling is childish. Their strong desire to ‘win’ will often lead them to try winning by more adult methods – whatever it takes to win.
Exceptions to this will be the extremely immature bully who, instead of switching to adult mode, simply yells louder. My suggestion? If that’s your situation, find another job as soon as feasibly possible.
Ever been yelled at regularly at work? How did you handle it?
Filed in Work, Motivation, Management, Workplace, Corporate Culture, Retention
Considering 54 million American workers said they’ve been bullied in the workplace, this is definitely a serious issue. I recently left a job after my boss bashed my faith and degraded my work ethic. There are definitely instances where workplace bullying becomes physically abusive, but more commonly, it seems that relational aggression runs rampant (alliance building, rumors and gossip, dirty looks, manipulation, blackmail, betrayal, exclusion, manipulation, eye-rolling, etc.)
I just published a book about relational aggression called Flying Grounded: My Spiritual Triumph Over Female Bullying. If anyone is interested, it can be found at www.iuniverse.com.
Thanks, Tami.
I read the overview about your book and it looks really interesting.
Of particular note, most people associate bullying or abusiveness with men. I’m glad to see you pointing out that females, too, can be bullies.
One counselor friend of mine tells me that women are often much more aggressive than men — it’s just that they do it in socially acceptable ways (mental / emotional sparring) versus the physical aggression commonly found in men.
Of additional special interest is the Chrisitan facet of your book — as many people think they can pick on Christians, thinking they’ll ‘turn the other cheek.’ Looks like a good read!!
- Dan