Category Archives: New Approaches

Canadian Expert Says Companies Who Condone Workplace Bullying Are Short-Sighted

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Guest blog article by Angela Monaghan [Ontario, Canada] – Advocate, Educator, & Counsellor addressing bullying issues. Founder of On T.R.A.C. for BULLYING PREVENTION, a not-for-profit organization promoting education, awareness, healing, and an empowered society that won’t let bullying thrive. Angela co-founded the International Educational Coalition on Workplace Bullying.

Short-sighted Business Trend

There’s been a disturbing two-fold trend in workplace bullying.   In short, employers are mistreating particular employees as a way to encourage these employees to quit and serving as an example to others to `tow the line, do more with and for less, shut up and put up or this will happen to you`.  The targeted employee becomes the example to others who desire to keep their jobs in an unsettled economic climate.  Since bullying is all about control it`s a way management gains the upper hand.  Unfortunately, this `upper hand` is NOT the healthy control resulting from a hierarchy.  Rather, this is the unhealthy control based on fear and it promotes the bullying culture in an environment. Continue reading →

“Arrogance” in the Workplace

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“We are living in the age of arrogance”

Stanley B. Silverman says he was intrigued with the idea of measuring the level of arrogance in the workplace.  Silverman, Russell E. Johnson and several Colleagues came up with the 22 item WARS scale to define these behaviors and the result is both fascinating and confirmation of what many of us have always suspected. The higher the level of arrogance the lower the level of performance, self-esteem and humility. At the core of the arrogant boss is the idea that they need to make sure that “their candle burns brighter” than anyone else by making “everyone else’s look smaller.” In a real life replay of the emperor’s new clothes, messengers are destroyed if they don’t tell these bosses what they want to hear – even if it actually destroys the business. Continue reading →

University Workers Complain Workplace Bullying Policies Fall Short

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When Policies Don’t Work

I would give anything to have the U.S. replicate the broad national investigation of abuse in our work cultures that Australia is currently undergoing.  [sign our petition] At least we can watch from halfway around the world and learn from information being presented.  Because, one of the issues being discussed is that policies in the workplace need certain components if they are going to be effective.   Unfortunately, here in America the most popular template for legislation, the Healthy Workplace Bill, doesn’t even require employers to put policies in place much less dictate that the point person for employees to complain to should be separate from HR.  Hopefully that will change and the bill will be amended by some smart legislator before it passes. Continue reading →

Dear Facebook Stalker

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Building a Tool Box for Victims of Workplace Bullying

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Are victim/targets really always powerless?

According to leading researchers Pamela Lutgen-Sandvik and  Sarah J Tracy “…Prior research typically characterizes targeted workers as powerless, as the term target might suggest. However, Lutgen-Sandvik (2006), Cowan (2009a), and Meares et al. (2004) all suggest that targeted workers resist bullying in many ingenious ways. These studies demonstrate the social processes involved in resistance as well as the forms of resistance most likely to result in providing relief from abuse. Taken together we see that communication scholars reconsider and critique the notion of the “powerless” target that heretofore has dominated workplace bullying research…” Continue reading →

Our ‘Must See TV’ Bullies

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Janice Harper left a comment on my last post that stands on its own and really deserves to be read. She’s a cultural anthropologist and writes regular articles for the Huffington Post.  She’s one of the few bloggers out there who dares to raise insightful questions on the topic of workplace bullying:  Continue reading →