Bully bosses thrive in small companies. Here's how to handle them.
They verbally abuse you, humiliate you in front of others. Maybe
it's because power hovers in the air, but offices tend to bring out the
bully in people. We offer strategies for handling such bad bosses. If
the schoolyard is the stomping ground of bully boys and bully
girls, then the office is the playground of adult bullies. Perhaps
because power is the chief perk in most companies, especially those with
tight hierarchies, offices can bring out the bully in people.
Everyone
has a war story. There's the boss who calls at 2 A.M. from
Paris--just because he's there. The boss who asks for your evaluation of
a problem and then proceeds to denigrate you and your opinion in
front of the whole staff as you seethe with hopefully hidden rage.
"It's a demonstration of power. It's demeaning," contends Harry
Levinson, Ph.D., the dean of organizational psychologists and head
of the Levinson Institute in Waltham, Massachusetts.
"I haven't studied office bullying systematically," he says. In
fact, no one has. Despite common perceptions of its prevalence, it's
essentially virgin turf for organizational psychology. Trouble is,
organizational psychologists are often called in at the highest level of
management; nowadays, most bullies are weeded out before they get to the top.
Nevertheless,
says Levinson, 40 years of consulting have given him some idea of
what they do and why. They over-control, micromanage, and display
contempt for others, usually by repeated verbal abuse and sheer
exploitation. They constantly put others down with snide remarks or
harsh, repetitive, and unfair criticism. They don't just differ with
you, they differ with you contemptuously; they question your
adequacy and your commitment. They humiliate you in front of others.
There
are two kinds of bullies, observes organizational psychologist
Laurence Stybel, Ph.D., a principal of Boston's Stybel Peabody
Lincolnshire & Associates: "Successful ones and unsuccessful
ones. The latter don't last long in organizations. The successful
bullies create problems, but they are competent"
Often they
are very bright workers. And therein lies the problem. They make a
significant contribution to the company as workers. They get
promoted because of their technical expertise. Then they wind up
supervising others, and spew on people in support functions, on
competitors, perhaps even their own bosses.
They are especially
rampant in high-tech companies, engineering firms, and financial
organizations--a stock fund manager doing an incredible job with
investments, for example. "The typical successful bully thinks,
'They won't do anything to me--I'm the best they've got,"'Stybel
says. But sooner or later, it's too costly to tolerate their
behavior.
It's getting too costly much sooner in most companies.
Stybel cites the example of a large New England hospital where the
bully is a brilliant physician who has been the director of
radiology for 11 years. The bullying was an issue over the years--in
the exit interviews of departing technical staff.
Why did
the hospital decide to do something only now? The administrator told
Stybel: "We can't tolerate the high turnover anymore. It's too
costly in the face of managed care." Occasionally, bullies do get
to the very top. Levinson points to Harold Geneen, the legendary
head of ITT, and coach Vince Lombardi. And then there's the issue of
Fortune magazine devoted every couple of years to America's
"toughest" bosses. Take the female CEO who reportedly yelled at the
executives of a division she felt was underperforming: "You're
eunuchs! How can your wives stand you? You've got nothing between your
legs!"
At least in large corporations, bullying is not as
blatant as it once was. "The John Wayne image of a leader doesn't go
over so well in the '90s" notes Pat Alexander of the Center for
Creative Leadership in Greensboro, North Carolina. "It affects the
efficiency of the entire organization." Intimidation tends to be
more polished.
While it's no longer cool to throw around your
authority, counterforces are leading to greater tolerance of
negative behavior. Stybel points to a growing 'What can you do for
me now?' stance. "There's a new generation of CEOs who expect to be
in place four years and move on. This fosters emotional distancing
from employees, an excessive focus on transactions; it does not
foster a positive relationship mode. Companies are growing
increasingly performance-oriented; do they care how anyone feels
about an executive's behavior?
"Where I have been retained, it's
not because they don't like bullies" notes Stybel. "Only the
underlying economics make it a dysfunctional behavior."
While
bullies inhabit the middle ranks of large concerns, they are
positively thriving at small companies. "There are lots of bad bosses
out there,' says Atlanta-based management consultant Neil Lewis,
Ph.D. "In smaller companies the quality of management is not as good
as at large companies. They're not professional managers."
Stybel
warns workers not to focus on where bullying comes from. "When
observers see a boss behave as a bully, they attribute it to trait
characteristics. That may not be the case. It's almost always a
product of individual history and make-up--and the company
atmosphere. But who cares? The most important thing is the
behavior."
Bullies do a lot of damage in organizations. They make subordinates
run scared. They put people in a protective mode, which interferes
with the company's ability to generate innovation.
They don't build in perpetuation of the organization, says
Levinson. "It keeps you in a state of psychological emergency. And
add to it the rage you feel towards the bully
and a sense of self-rage for putting up with such behavior." These
are hardly prime conditions for doing your best work--any work.
As
with kids, bully bosses have blind spots. They don't see themselves
accurately. They see themselves as better than others--which only
acts to justify their bullying behavior--a feeling reinforced by
promotion. Another big blind spot: sensitivity to others' feelings.
Often, says Levinson, this arises in competitive settings, where "you
learn to focus on your own behavior. It breeds a kind of psychological
ignorance."
Stybel has developed a psychological karate chop to "unfreeze"
executives's attitudes--a customized letter of probation. It essentially
tells an executive that, due to changes in market conditions, or
some other external factor, his weaknesses now outweigh the
strengths he has long displayed. "It spells out desired behavioral changes
in a positive way--not 'people are complaining that you are a
bully' but 'if you make these changes you'll have a reputation as
someone who is considerate.'" It gives honchos 90 days to shape
up--or else.
It's never easy to make headway with an office
bully, observers agree. The first step is to recognize when it's
happening. Repetitive verbal abuse. Micromanagement. Exploitation.
Any activity that repeatedly demeans you or is discourteous.
"Whenever you're dissed, you're dealing with a bully," says
Levinson. "Sometimes it's inadvertent. We all get caught up in
that--once. You apologize and it's over. But bullies don't recognize
their impoliteness and they don't apologize."
Tactics from the Pros
Here are tactics from seasoned organizational consultants:
- Confront the bully: "I'm sorry you feel you have to do that, but I will not put up with that kind of behavior. It has no place here." It can be startlingly effective. "Bullies lack boundaries on their own behavior. Some external controls may force them to back off" says Levinson. "A bully can't bully if you don't let yourself be bullied."
- Conduct the confrontation in private--behind dosed doors in the bully's office, at lunch outside the office. The bully won't back down in front of an audience.
- Specify the behavior that's unworkable: "You can't just fire from the hip and demean me in front of my staff or others."
- Don't play armchair psychologist. Restrict the discussion to specific behaviors, not theories of motivation.
- Make your boss aware by showing him or her the consequences of his behavior on others. "I've been noticing how Jim seems so demoralized lately. I think one of the contributing factors may be last week's meeting when you ridiculed him for producing an inadequate sales report." Many executives have no information on how their leadership style impacts others, says Alexander. "Peers don't tell them they are in competition. Why feed information that may make your competitor more effective?"
- Awareness is not enough; help your boss figure out what to do. Specify the behavioral change you want. "Your boss is likely to brush off criticism with, 'That's just my style,'" observes Marquand. "Furnish your boss with an example of desirable behavior-from his or her own repertoire of actions. Jump in with 'But I can recall a month ago when you were . . . lavish in your praise of that new assistant,' or whatever."
- Point out how the boss's behavior is seen by others. "You embarrass me when you publicly humiliate me in a meeting, but you also embarrass yourself. You're demonstrating your weakness." Comparing self-perceptions and the perceptions of others is often a "grabber," finds Alexander. "The fact of difference gets people's attention."
- Try humor. If you point out to your boss that she's acting like a caricature, that may be enough to make her aware.
- Recruit an ally or allies. Standing up for yourself can stop a bully by earning his/her respect. But it could also cost your job. The higher your boss is in the organization, says Lewis, the more you need allies. "It pays to check out with other workers whether the behavior you are experiencing is generalized or idiosyncratic," says Levinson. "If it's generalized, it's easier for two or three people to confront a boss than one alone."
- If the company you work for is large enough to have one, talk to the human resources department. Unfortunately, says Levinson, companies often don't learn about bullying experiences until an exit interview. But the larger the company you work for, the more mechanisms there are in place to deal with bullies. Unfortunately, the corollary is that in a smaller organization you may have little choice except to leave.
- If you are important to the organization, you may accomplish your goal by going to your boss's boss. But that's always a chancy move; you'll have to live with your boss in the morning.
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