Managers who fail to step in before matters get out of hand allow an environment to develop in which bullies are allowed to flourish argues Seán Ruth
Recent surveys of bullying in the public sector suggest that about one in four people believe they have experienced bullying within the past three years. About one in seven say they have experienced it within the past six months. These are disturbing figures and they demonstrate a widespread perception that bullying is prevalent in the workplace.
Much of the reaction to this problem has focused on the personality and behaviour of those people identified as bullies. Their personal characteristics have been described in detail and various strategies have been suggested for how to deal with them.
Unfortunately, this preoccupation with individual bullies is in some ways a distraction from a much bigger problem, namely, that much of the bullying that occurs is in some way facilitated, condoned or encouraged by the culture of the organisation itself.
There are actually three different sources of bullying in organisations. The first of these is what we can call the serial bully. This is the person with a bullying personality who has a compulsive need to treat people badly. They do it at work and they probably do it outside of work in their other relationships. When people talk about bullies they mostly focus on serial bullies.
A second source of bullying is pressure bullying where someone becomes abrasive and difficult when they are under pressure or stress. They react badly to pressure but are usually fine the rest of the time.
This is sometimes just one aspect of a third source of bullying, namely, where there is a negative culture. In this case, the culture of the organisation is one with an authoritarian style of management or supervision and a heavy-handed approach to conflict and discipline.
People feel they are regularly treated with disrespect, there are often win-lose, adversarial relationships, an atmosphere of criticism and suspicion and a feeling that people have to be watched all the time. In general, senior management are seen to be distant and non-involved and, in such organisations, destructive conflict is common and stress levels are high.
In my experience, most cases of bullying are located in a negative culture that allows bullying to take place and are not simply due to the presence of serial bullies. In fact, serial bullies are only a small part of the problem.
For this reason, anti-bullying policies and procedures are of limited use. They serve the purpose of identifying and punishing individuals who bully but do very little to change the underlying culture that produces the problem in the first place.
Many organisations, in fact, do not even have these basic structures in place or, if they do, employees have little confidence in them.
It is very important to get these structures right and to have proper investigation procedures that are fair and impartial. However, we cannot expect them to eliminate the problem of bullying.
There are other alternatives however. An important one is to train people, particularly managers and supervisors, in how to intervene and resolve conflicts before they get out of hand.
Many bullying complaints arise because conflicts are allowed to escalate out of control before anything is done about them. The managers choose to ignore the problems because they are uncomfortable with conflict or do not feel skilled in how to handle it. One feature of the cases I have dealt with has been the tendency of more senior managers not to get involved in sorting out the problem and effectively abandoning those who are struggling in the situation.
I can understand why this happens but it is simply not a workable way to solve problems. On the other hand, a number of organisations are now beginning to make much greater use of mediation so that there is a pro-active way of resolving the difficulty. Even this will probably not be enough, however.
As long as the culture of the organisation is left unchanged we can expect to see bullying continue. Anti-bullying policies need to be embedded in a culture that actively promotes respect and dignity rather than simply punishing those who break the rules.
One of the most common complaints that I hear from people in work organisations is that "you could kill yourself around here for all the thanks you get". This means moving towards a culture that emphasises respect, appreciation, listening, empowerment and praise.
This concept was nicely summed up in the idea of a culture that focuses on catching people doing things right.
In my experience of working with organisations, creating such a culture involves actively nurturing and valuing equality and diversity and also developing the leadership, communication and conflict resolution skills of managers and supervisors.
To build a culture where people's contributions are routinely recognised and valued and where the focus is on bringing out the best in people will make it very difficult for people to be mistreated. To bully someone would be so at odds with the way things are done that it would be immediately interrupted and stopped. People would simply refuse to tolerate it or allow it to continue unchallenged.
Putting anti-bullying policies in place without a commitment to changing the culture of the organisation simply produces a band-aid approach to the problem.
Focusing on "bad" people who bully misses the point. Experts have suggested that 98 per cent of the problems in organisations are system problems not people problems. Until we change the culture, bullying will continue.
Seán Ruth is an organisational psychologist specialising in the areas of leadership, conflict resolution and equality. He is the author of a forthcoming book, Leadership and Liberation (Routledge).