My recent column on ‘supervisors from hell’ struck a nerve with one reader, who writes:

“You should replace the term ‘boss from hell’ with ‘workplace bully’. There has been extensive research done on workplace bullying. If a child is a bully when young, what do you think he/she will grow up to become (if there is no intervention when young)? That’s right, he/she grows up to be an adult bully. And the playground changes to the workplace.

“The workplace bully will focus on one person and ride them until they break down, quit or are fired. Within two weeks after that person has left his or her position, or been fired, [the bully] will then focus on a new victim, and start all over again.

“It is one thing to expect productive employees; it is another to try to destroy them on all levels: work reputation, financially, emotionally, spiritually and physically.”

I’d like to comment on two themes here: the importance of the manager/employee relationship, and the nature of workplace abuse — manager to employee.

Manager as VIP

In my book, Getting Engaged: The New Workplace Loyalty, Mattanie Press 2005, I emphasize the importance of employees’ feelings about their relationship with their boss in determining whether they will experience engagement in the workplace:

“I’m acutely aware of my manager’s presence, absence, tone of voice, dress, punctuality, likes, dislikes, habits, closed door, open door, time spent with me or with others, biases, interests, moods, small talk, favourite sports team, use of e-mail – an acuteness that I invest in no other person in the organization!

“My manager is the single most important element in my overall employment experience.” (p.16)

The key is my feeling about our relationship. If I think it’s a good one, it’s amazing all the work I’ll happily do. I have an engaged mindset. When the headhunters call, I’m not interested in finding out if the grass is greener somewhere else.

If, however, my feeling about the relationship is negative, I’ll have a disengaged mindset, and I’ll say to the headhunter: “Thank heaven you called. Get me out of here!”

The distance between the two mindsets is very short. I can swing from one to the other in either direction based on my last interaction with my manager. It’s important for supervisors, managers, vice presidents, etc. to be aware of the impact their behaviour has on the people who report to them. It’s not uncommon, however, for supervisors to be unaware that their employees are as fixated on their behaviour as they are.

This is a kind of black hole in supervisory training and orientation, And therein, I think, lies the solution. We need to educate supervisors, especially when they’re new, about the extent to which their employees notice everything they do and say.

From playground to workplace

As our reader points out, some supervisors pursue abusive relationships with selected employees. Why do people remain in abusive relationships? Because they don’t believe that a better one, or even just another one, exists or ever will. The tragedy is that the victims have ruled out the most helpful response (resigning and ending the relationship) because they are convinced that the alternative to their current job is unemployment.

The abuser sets up a dynamic in which the employee must please the supervisor but never can. The supervisor implements one assignment or task after another, and no matter what the employee does, or how, it’s wrong or not good. The employee can’t do anything right. If the employee says white, the boss says black.

The underlying message goes like this: “You must please me, but you can’t, but you must, but you can’t, but you must, but you can’t …” The physical equivalent is that of the supervisor smashing the employee’s head against a wall over and over again, with the results our reader eloquently points out: “…destroy them…financially, emotionally, spiritually and physically.”

Smashing heads into walls is a crime, but the bloodless workplace version isn’t.

Victims of workplace abuse need help because they’ve locked themselves in and thrown away the key. They believe there’s no way out. And they’re too ashamed to reach out. The danger is that they’ll start to believe that the abuser is right and that they’re incapable of good work.

Organizations need to provide employees with a zero-tolerance policy towards bullying and a guide to dealing with it. Training should be provided to help everyone understand what bullying is.

Organizations also need to watch for signs of bullying:

• Employees who report to a particular supervisor take noticeably more sick days than others.
• Punctuality is a problem for employees in a particular unit.
• Requests for leaves of absence come in larger numbers from employees in a particular unit.
• Turnover is particularly high in one area.

 

These are signs of the presence of a bully, not proof. The manager of the suspected bully needs to be brought into the picture and coached to investigate what the signs mean.

I suspect that the reason why people with abusive tendencies get into supervisory positions has to do with the time-honoured practice of promoting the best worker in the unit and praying that they’ll work out as a supervisor. It’s high time we learned that the skill set needed to supervise the work is qualitatively different from the skill set needed to do the work. Success at doing is not a predictor for supervising. We must stop assuming otherwise.

Thanks to my reader for highlighting this issue.

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Tim Rutledge, Ph.D., is Partner, Retention Services and Director of the Centre for Employee Retention and Engagement Services with IQ PARTNERS Inc., an executive search and human resources consulting firm. You can contact Tim at rutledge@iqpartners.com.

Disclaimer: Advice and recommendations are based on limited information provided and should be used as a guideline only. Neither the author nor CharityVillage.com make any warranty, express or implied, or assume any legal liability for accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information provided in whole or in part within this article.