h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Having a bully for a boss can make an 8-hour day seem like an eternity...

A boss who is a bully can exhibit some of all of the following behaviours:
* Criticizes your work only when others are present.
* Calls employees rude or insulting names (often in the presence of others)
* Deflects blame for failed projects/ideas onto others at all times
* Takes credit for successful projects/ideas and fails to recognize the team's effort

So what do you do about it?
You have two choices really - learn to live with it or find a new job.

When we say find a new job, that doesn't necessarily mean leave the company - a simple transfer away from the bully is often enough. And it sends a pretty clear signal to management when everyone keeps requesting transfer out of the bully's division.

Alternately, you can learn to deal with the bully's bad behaviour...

Don't allow his tirades against you to touch your own sense of self-esteem. Recognize how small and ridiculous he looks when he's berating you in front of your co-workers and also remember that it has probably happened to them all and they know that you don't deserve this treatment.

Another effective approach is to fight back. When he starts to shout, shout back. Don't let him treat you this way. And when you're ahead in the argument, simply walk away. If there's one thing a bully can't stand it's a two-way confrontation. This type of boss doesn't confront you in the privacy of his office because he is afraid of dealing with people one-on-one, having an audience makes him feel important (that he's the boss). Standing up for yourself generally prevents further confrontations because he won't want to risk losing the confrontation.

When he takes credit for your idea, let him unless there's some financial reward or promotion in it for you. I don't allow myself to associate my personal well-being with my success/failure at work. Does it really matter in the grand scheme of life, the universe and everything if it was *your* idea to save the company $1,500 a year by using cheaper pencils. Besides, all your coworkers have experienced this one was well and will recognize this behaviour for what it is.

Having a boss who is a bully doesn't need to be the end of the world. It might not be the most enjoyable work environment, but work isn't a four-letter word by coincidence.

Bully bosses must be more prevalent than I thought. I was in a supervisory position a couple of years back, and generally things ran smoothly. I got on with my team, didn't harrass them, just expected them to do their jobs with as little to-do as possible.

I had an old fellow on my team, a few months from retirement. He was on the fork lift one day and broke a bag of dry chemical he was lifting, and the bright blue spill spread over some of the yard. Of course, Work Place Safety picked us up for it the next morning. I was furious, first that the bag had been pierced and the stuff spilled, and secondly, that I'd been blind-sided by the reprimand. I hauled him into my office, closed the door and quietly chewed him up. The rest of the team was shocked - they were used to a loud screaming match right out on the warehouse floor. I just can't be like that. They did hear about it though. I told them once more - if something happens - tell me. I hate being blind-sided, and our team solves its own problems.

I can remember an incident that happened to me when I was working offshore as a welding supervisor. We had this right "pratt" of a bloke for a mamager, always used to shout & swear at every one no matter where he was.He picked on me one day, in front of my squad, so I just turned away and ignored him. This made him so angry that he threw down his clip board and shouted " are you trying to make a c*** of me" No, not at all,"I will just let nature run its course" was my reply. This brought a huge applause from all the lads up above on the scaffolding!Smudger.

Excellent! Just what a bully needs.

OH! I forgot to tell you, the OIM (boss of whole platform)Heard of what had happened, and years later when I was at an interview in London for a job. He was on the interview panel, and got me the job! So it does stand you in good stead if you stand up for yourself.
Smudger.

People tend to forget - Its not always the boss who is the bully - I have plenty of examples of where employees bully their boss, some personal and others I come across in the course of my work.

This can be equally difficult for the conciencious boss - the obvious answer may be for the boss to fire the employee but often this is not possible without breaking the law - the very thing bullying employees trade on. Certainly in the UK the law offers many more protections to the employee than to the boss - its relatively easy for the employee to threaten the boss and to cause a lot of disruption with allegations and possibly even end someones career. If I had a pound for every employee who ever said to me 'I am taking this to a lawyer' to try and bully me into them getting their way, or to get me to tell their boss that they are in the right and should get their own way - I would be very rich!

There are employees who use the good nature and fairness of their bosses to their advantage. They seem to look for the ones who take pride in doing a good job and then try and sully their name and to prevent them from being effective with the others in their team.

Best advice? For the boss - Keep doing the right things and dont let the individual know they are getting to you - if someone does not know what winds you up their attempts will back fire and they will end up more wound up than ever. If an employee is making accusations against you let someone know and ask for their perspective and arrange to meet the employee in the presence of someone else to discuss the situation. Keep notes on conversations with any employees who are claiming to be disatisfied in any way - then you will be able to recall what was said if this later becomes an accusation against you.

In the course of a managers career it is highly likley that they will come across some sort of bullying from an employee - learn from it and move on

For the employee - what I am always tempted to say but due to the nature of my role cant is - Grow up - we are not in the play ground now! More seriously acting this way can easily lead to beeing seen as a problem employee and as such can severely limit your career and the chances of finding another role. If you were to channel your energy into doing a good job instead you would probably end up doing a great job and get the recognition for having done so.

There is no real excuse for bullying in the workplace either by the boss or by the employee. it is possible for either to be at fault and its important that if you are being bullied there is someone you can talk to - dont feel its something you have to face on your own. Others around the bully probably know the person is a bully too - they may just be waiting for someone to give them the information to let them have the conversation with the bully

Bullying is terrible as either an employee or a boss. I realise that I have presented a very management centric view here but feel that its important we look at both sides of the coin

Yes ok but surely if you are the boss, you would not allow yourself to be bullied? by an employee. Your job is to take charge for them and their actions. I had all this years ago when I was a very young foreman in charge of a squad of men a lot older than myself. Yes they did try it on, BUT only the once. You are not there to get involved in petty disputes, you are there to get the job done. Thats what you have to put over to them, and make them responsible for their own actions. You would never achieve anything by allowing the squad to work you, YOU have to WORK the squad!
Smudger.

Hi Smudger

Thanks for your comments.

I agree that as a boss you should not allow yourself to be bullied. Actually I think everyone should stand up to bullies. I know from my own expreience as a schoolchild that this is not easy and takes huge courage.

My personal theory is that bullies tend to be people who are not very confident in themselves and that they are not prepaired to be accountable for their own actions - it is easier for them to blame someone else for every little thing that goes wrong rather than to accept any responsibility.

The point I was trying to make is that sometimes it is the employee who (or tries to) bully the boss.

Let me give you some examples ...

In my last role we had to fire someone for intimidating and bullying other employees. Once it beacme clear that his attempts at being nice to us (the managers) were not working he then threatened us with Employment Tribunial. Knowing we had evidence that we in the right we told him that he was welcome to if he felt he had a case. Having failed to intimidate us that way his tactics became more extreeme. He then seperately threatened three members of the management team and the person he was accused of bullying. He told the employee he had been victimising that he would have him fired and makes sure he never was physically able to work again as he would have his friends ensure he would never walk again. He told me he would wait at the end of the industrial estate we worked on and follow me home, rape me and then set fire to my house. He said he knew what car I drove (he was not however observent enough to know my car was in the garage that week) and that I lived alone so no one would stop him. Pretty scary stuff I am sure you would agree and in my books a form of bullying. We had to involve the police to get an injunction out against him and none of the managers involved were allowed to be in the factory on their own. We also had to move the employee onto perminant day shift to ensure his safety.

Another example.

A junior manager who I was coaching came and told me about one of his team who was making his life misery. This employee had been spreading malicious gossip about this manager amongst the team, had deliberately made mistakes to make the boss look bad and had been to this persons senior manager and told them that he had not been managing them properly. This new manager was very conciencious and prided himself in attention to detail and being very fair with his team. He was the kind of boss who would defend his team to the hilt and accept personal responsibility for any errors they made. There were performance issues with this employee which the manager had given them a lot of support (and indeed more than his boss had advised) to overcome. The employee did not however want to make changes or to actually do what was required as the basics of their job. The employee knew that by making these allegations the boss would be personally hurt, but that it might be possible to undermine them such that they would not have to do any more work. The employee set about making a number of factually inaccurate allogations about the manager and trying to create doubt in peoples mind about his abilities, thus meaning that their own performance issues were masked. The employee made it very clear that this would continue until they got their own way in terms of doing very little all day. This to me is also bullying. Once the facts were established this all rather backfired for the employee.

I hope this clarifies my points!

Light

Wow! that sounds more like intimidation to me, this person sounds like a case for the "funny farm". Have you ever noticed that where ever you have a group of indivuadals working together, you always end up with internal politics being invloved? Then one person finds others to back them up in their quest against some one else? It is just a fact of life, jealousy seems to be a prime reason for this, well at least that is what I have seen in my working lifetime. I am no longer working now, but I still it going on as an observer.
Smudger.

I remember a piece of advice I was given when I was coming to the end of my professional training and just about to take up some staff management duties.
My mentor told me that when you get a groupof people to manage it doesnt matter how intelligent, articulate and caring they are as individuals as a group they will descend to playground level.
I have yet to prove him wrong

Well your mentor got it right! Its just as I was saying, it seems to be a fact of life, Sad but true. Smudger.

Mikey - your mentor was a very smart person! It is so painfully true. That's part of why the last team I supervised refused to be called a team. Trying to be a smart-alec, I asked them if they wanted to be a Pod of wales, a Gaggle of geese, or a Murder of crows. After some (playground, again!) laughing and comments, we settled on the Warehouse Crew. It worked well. The hardest part was convincing them they were empowered, and had, not only the right, but the responsibility of airing their views on whatever the topic at hand was.

Rumours can be a viscious form of bullying. We used to play a game of If You Haven't Heard a Good Rumour by Wednesday, Start One. But we would have never dreamed of going after anyone in a maliscious way. And we had some reason to, in a few cases. It was like an unwritten rule of the game.

I've been a boss for many years I have also had to put up with sometimes a really concerted effort to replace me, believe it or not with direct collusion between my senior UK managers and my staff that I controlled. It was a trying time as I was also going through a divorce and had met a woman that I intended to marry. But I guess I am made of pretty tough stuff having been working most of life in overseas locations. So... I did (with very good reason) the first step. I fired an immensely popular guy (with the other workers) not only "on the spot" but I got him on a plane with an exit visa in three hours flat. Boy did that cause a deep breath intake. Next I reminded my UK bosses that I possessed some very sensitive information concerning the running of the company (they knew I had all this anyway) and I told them that unless this back stabbing stopped as of now I would not hesitate to blow the gaff! Suddenly it was all sweetness and light. I went on to finish my contract I gave as always 100 per cent effort. But just to add to my satisfaction. I left the company and the country I was working in (Iraq) just 4 weeks before Saddam attacked Kuwait and shorly after that the company went bust!! I have found as an expat the worse case scenario is to work with people of your own nationality. Best to avoid this if possible as for sure that is when the back stabbing starts. I have my own business now so I don't have that kind of agro but my advice is always to fight back against any kind of harrassment in the office if you don't it will always get worse. I have never left a company at any time in my life without it being in my own time and of my own choosing!