Bullying in the Workplace

From Chapter 9 entitled Communicating Leadership in the sub section Bullying in the Workplace on pages 297-298 the process by which a leader can be a bully is discussed. Robyn Mann defines bullying in four different parts: (1) Verbally through name calling, threats, or personal attacks (2) Indirect verbal through gossip, slander, or innuendos (3) Nonverbal through looks, gestures, or ignoring and (4) Manipulation through withholding important information, setting unreasonable deadlines, excluding from deadlines, and so on. Bullying can take many forms subtle or not, but the fact of the matter is that it all starts young. The way a child bullies their peers is the same ways a boss bullies their employees. I, luckily, I have never to experience a boss who bullied me however, my mom has. Her boss, I think, is the worst boss anyone could ever have and she did her best to make my mom feel out of place, that she did not do a good job, and that no one liked her. As it turns out the boss was bitter because she wanted her friend to get the job that my mom got and tried to run her off, it worked, but her friend still did not get the job!

People can be incredibly cruel if they want to be and the fact that people are so willing to make someone miserable is disheartening. I hope one day people can learn to deal with confrontations, misunderstandings, or personality clashes maturely and work it out together without the use of bullying and pressure.