Workplace Bullying - Nature and Characteristics

Workplace Bullying

Intro

Bullying is constant criticism, nitpicking, faultfinding, refusal to value, undermining, being singled out, isolated, excluded, marginalized, overruled, belittled, humiliated, threatened, overloaded, your work and credit for it is stolen, responsibility increased but authority is taken away, vacation request refused, training denied, unrealistic goals and deadlines, hypocrisy, duplicity, fabrication, distortion, twisting everything you say and do, abuse of disciplinary processes and procedures, verbal and written warnings for trivial or fabricated reasons, coercion into early or ill-health retirement, unfair dismissal.

Embittered by a background of being victimized in an abusive relationship themselves they go out into the world seething with resentment. The serial bully displays an obsessive, compulsive and self-gratifying urged to displace their uncontrolled aggression onto others, while exhibiting a psychotic lack of insight into their behavior and its effect on people around them. Jealousy and envy impel the bully to identify the competent and popular individual who is then controlled and subjugated through the projection of the bully's own inadequacies and incompetence. When the target asserts their rights not to bullied, paranoid fear of exposure compels the bully to perceive that person as a threat and hence dispose of them as quickly as possible.

In Brief:  The Nature of the Workplace Bully

Has a Jekyll and Hyde nature, compulsive liar, selective memory, denies everything when challenged or called to account, makes things up on the spur the moment, aggressive, devious, manipulative, spiteful, vengeful, doesn't listen, can’t sustain a mature adult conversation, lack of conscience, shows no remorse, is drawn to power, is a control freak, emotionally cold and flat, ungrateful, dysfunctional, disruptive, rigid and inflexible, selfish, insensitive, insincere, insecure, and immature but always charming and plausible. Charm has as its motive, deception.

The characteristics

• The serial bully lacks insight into his or her behavior. Is oblivious to the crassness and inappropriateness of this behavior.

• The serial bully is blind to their trail of human destruction as they blunder through life. The serial bully lack of insight into the behavior even when it is pointed out to them. This could be described as psychotic, def. False fixed beliefs.
• Acts out of the gratification of self-interest only.
• Concerned with self-aggrandizement and self-preservation
• Everything that they say and do can be traced back to themselves.
• Is insensitive, especially when others are experiencing difficulty.
• The vulnerability of others is often a major stimulant to the serial bully.
• Uses criticism, humiliation, in the guise of addressing shortfalls in performance of those around them. In reality, these are for control and subjugation, not for assistance in performance enhancements.
• Is unable to maintain confidentiality.
• Distorts twists, concocts and fabricates any criticism and allegations by others towards them.
• Unable to trust others, which may explain their compulsion for excessive monitoring.
• Is drawn to positions of power and areas where there is potential for abuses of power.
• Autocratic and dictatorial, often use phrases like “you shouldn't” and “you ought to”.
• Can only maintain a short-term focus. Often cannot think or plan ahead more than 24 hours.
• Has a short, selective memory and cannot remember what they said did or committed themselves to more than 24 hours ago. In contrast, they're always able to remember your faults up to years later.
• Bully seems to live in a bubble of the present.
• Have poor communication skills, interpersonal and social skills.
• Often uses almost exclusively negative language with few or no positive comments.
• Usually hiding behind someone higher up in the hierarchy of the employer.
• Extrovert bullies tend to be shouters and screamers, which makes them highly visible.
• Introvert bullies, which are considered the most dangerous type, tend to sit in the background and recruit others to do the bullying for them.
• When dealing with this type of bullying identify the arch-bully in the background and focus on this individual only. All of their recruits will melt away.
• Lack the skills of creativity and innovation. Rarely have any ideas of his or her our own.  Tends to regurgitate what others,  especially superiors say.
• Is a plagiarist, will steal other people's work and take credit for it
• Is unwilling and unable to value others and their contributions and achievement.
• Shows discrepancy in the valuing of tasks. Tasks that they must do are always more valued.
• Deliberately devalues the work of others. When the bully has a similar job, they become obsessed with getting lots of recognition for it. When the subordinate does the same job, it is seen as trivial and not worth mentioning.
• Is ungrateful and rarely if ever say to others, ‘a job well done’.
• Is unable to assess the importance of events or tasks. Often making a fuss over trivial things while ignoring important, urgent matters.
• Exhibits duplicity and hypocrisy.
• Has an overwhelming, unhealthy and narcissistic need to portray themselves as a kind and caring person, in contrast to their ultimate malevolent treatment of others.
• The bully is oblivious to this discrepancy between how they like to be seen and how they are.
• Often has an unhealthy obsession with cleanliness and orderliness.
• Introvert bully especially is insincere, superficial.
• Born without empathy. Unable to learn these skills. Display empathetic failures in all their relationships.
• Frequent use charm as compensation and cover-up.
• Any attempts at empathy are superficial, amateurish. Is based on mimicry rather than genuine concern and are to make the bully's look and feel good, especially in front of witnesses.
• Is unwilling to apologize for mistakes except for occasion when witnesses are present
• Is quick to blame others.
• Is devious and manipulative.
• Spiteful, vengeful.
• When aggression is used will claims that they are only ‘being assertive’.
• Has unpredictable mood swings, blows hot and cold, often suddenly and without warning.
• Is inconsistent in their judgment, often overruling, ignoring or denying what they said previously.
• Is a flexible and unable to evaluate options and alternatives.
• Is unforgiving and often seizes on other’s mistakes using guilt for manipulation and control.
• Sees others as threats.
• What they fear most is the exposure of their adequacies. It often borders on paranoia.
• Are extremely evasive when asked for information particularly by subordinates.
• Uses indirect communication, often relies excessively or exclusively on memos, email, or third-party and other strategies for avoiding face-to-face contact.
• Have no listening skills. It can be like talking to a brick wall.
• Is unable to sustain a mature adult conversation.
• Sees people as objects. In the same way, that child abusers and rapists see their victims as an object for gratification.
• Displays excessive and rigid adherence to procedures, rules, regulations, duty, as a cover for their lack of creativity.
• Their work is largely bureaucratic with obedience to orders and rules, which is their hiding place.
• They spend most of their working day pondering the abdication of any job/role/ responsibility that could be seen as an admission of their inability to manage.
• An inability to tolerate minor frustrations.
• A tendency to act impulsively, recklessly and randomly.
• The bully's private life is usually a mess.
• Inability to learn from past experiences, however unpleasant.
• This learning blindness is a key feature of the serial bully. This inability to learn seems to be concentrated in the area of interpersonal, social, communication and behavioral skills.
• Other adjectives that describe this individual include scheming, calculating, cruel, sadistic, premeditated, exploitive, opportunistic,
• The lack of interpersonal, social and empathetic skills is reminiscent of autism.
• The serial bully relies almost entirely on rules, procedures, aggression, and mimicry to hide their lack of people skills.
• They often pass as excellent actors and mimics.
• The Bullying is intended to hide these incompetencies and inadequacies.
• There's a lot evidence to suggest that people who are bullies as adults, were bullied as children at home or in school. This is where they learned to bully and learned that they could bully others and get away with it.
• The serial bully is unable or unwilling to act within the bounds of society while insisting everyone else does.
• Since March 1997, in the U.K, there is now a legal precedent that bullying, (verbal intimidation with no physical contact), constitutes an assault and therefore now is a criminal offense.
• The serial bully regularly shows impatience and irritability. When questioned or called to account they then become aggressive. A psychological assault is what follows.
• The serial bully always blames others (projections) as a means of avoiding responsibility for the behavior or the effect their behavior has on others.
• The purpose of bullying is to hide inadequacies and incompetencies. The worst the bullying, the greater and more widespread their incompetencies are.

·         Abusive employers will often pay a large of court settlements to keep their incompetence secret.

Suggestions for a grievance letter.

All last year, you have chosen to bullied, harassed and victimized me. Your behavior towards me has resulted in me considering resignation for the sake of my physical, psychological and professional well-being. You have subjected me to caustic criticism, nitpicking, and faultfinding and while you claim these were to do with my of lack of performance, the distorted and fabricated nature of your criticisms reveal that they were really for control and subjugation, this is one of the tactics by which bullies identify and reveal themselves. Your behavior towards me has prevented me from fulfilling my duties. This is not in the interest of the employers or the shareholders and by choosing to behave in this way you’ve bought yourself, and the staff and the employer into disrepute.

Breach of Duty to Care – Health and Safety at the Workplace

The bully's behavior constitutes a breach of the Employer's Duty to Care under the Health and Safety Act, whereby employers have a legal obligation to ensure both physical and psychological well being of their employees. If having brought to the attention of a health and safety issue and the employer chooses not to take action this than to be could be considered a breach of this act.

High job stress is not simply due to the employee’s inability to cope with excessive demands but a consequence of the employer’s failure to provide a safe environment to work and as required under this Act.

Blaming the sufferer of stress (blaming the victim) for suffering the stress is a deliberate attempt to divert attention away from the causes of the stress and thus an admission of guilt and failure to fill their obligations of Duty to Care. Herein lays the Breach in the Duty to Care.

A few extra notes: There needs to be more research done on people who are psychologically violent but never or rarely physically violent. Those that are only psychologically violent have of course low self-esteem but also high self-discipline and high intelligence. The physically violent on the other hand have as their starting point as well low self-esteem but in contrast usually have low intelligence, and low self-discipline.

See additional info on Cluster B Personality Disorders particularly Narcissistic and Antisocial P/D.

Source of material: Tim Field’s Workplace Bullying Web Site.       1998