I'm going to start by acknowledging that at any given time, anyone can claim someone else bullied them, and the truth may or may not be known. The same can be said about any other topic, in the absence of concrete evidence. What about when the bullying takes the form of psychological, mental, and emotional, abuse and torture? It becomes more difficult to expose what is actually taking place when the main modus operandi of the bully is to use gaslighting, exclusion, isolation, manipulation of circumstances to frame a false narrative, gossip, character assassination, and fear based operations forcing others to participate or remain silent.
Bullying can be overt and take the form of obvious name calling, yelling in front of others, physical abuse, online attacks without anonymity, ganging up on a bully with others physically, blatant intimidation, and constant negativity, insults, and criticisms, of a target or targets.
Bullying can also take place covertly, and is an insidious, soul destroying experience. This can include consistently dismissing the input and opinions of the target, ignoring a target, using silent treatment, isolating a target from family, friends, or colleagues without valid reason, removing any responsibilities or privileges of a target, gaslighting by reversing any narrative, using DARVO responses (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim & Offender), spreading misinformation, lies, and character assassinations behind the scenes, using personal information against the target to demean, belittle, humiliate, and eventually destroy the target (if the target is not able to recognise or stop the assaults), employing gang stalking and inciting mobbing of a target, and in work environments using all manner of work related tasks and behaviours to frame a victim as the problem.
I've seen multiple suggestions for the best way to handle bullies including to speak up and inform a manager, or someone in a position of authority. Say nothing and hope the perpetrator stops their behaviours. Speak to the bully individually and address your concerns. Employ a range of different communication approaches to an identified bully to reduce their effect, harm, and impact, to the victim.
My experience with the above suggestions is as follows: Having the information provided to those in positions of authority, used to cause further damage. Saying nothing and hoping poor behaviour would cease resulting in a combination of isolation and being ignored, or hostility and lack of interest in future communication. Speaking to individuals to address any issues in a friendly and open way resulting in brief cessations of interaction, slightly less hostility in communication, followed by further isolation from wider groups and teams. Finally, trying to use different approaches to ensure good communication and to reduce any personal impacts from the identified bully or aggressor is strategic and provides another way to approach a bully. However, it is a band-aid approach, it basically places the responsibility of bullying effects on to the victim to navigate and problem solve, and allows the bully to continue unchallenged (even if they may be momentarily confused by an unexpected use of strategy). The effort used to employ strategies to reduce inflaming the unreasonable intimidation and manipulation of a bully far outweighs the short-term advantages of having a bully refrain from delivering poor behaviour in a quick chat, only for it to return on another day.
Recognising that the likelihood of not encountering bullies is unachievable, however, by not enforcing a zero tolerance policy in group environments, how is bullying ever reduced, and how are environments improved? The only way to reduce the numbers of bullies being tolerated in group environments is to implement consequences for actions. It is simply unacceptable to expect certain departments or staff to be at the mercy of bullying to appease other hidden agendas.
In several industries, I have witnessed bullying behaviour against others, against myself, and even between management teams themselves. In all scenarios, the majority of people central to and surrounding the bullying behaviours either ignore it and pretend they're not aware of any bullying, OR they become loyal and devoted YES people to the perpetrators. The numbers of people speaking up or speaking directly to people they seek to set good terms of communication with are quite low. This is disappointing but understandable when the result of speaking up, even if you've been asked to contribute information, is often the loss of a job, career, relationships, income, and a major impact to physical and mental health in the process.
These issues are compounded when the victim has been somewhat blindsided by the treatment and/or the reason/s for the poor treatment. If the bullied has previously been a loyal and successful employee, or part of a stable relationship, partnership, or friendship, that has been the catalyst to the loss of their livelihood, and has not been aware of any reasons that contributed to ending up in such an awful position, the negative impacts they experience are beyond comprehension to those without lived experience.
In most hierarchies, the person at the top is seen to be the voice of reason. If reporting critical information to those in immediate authority is met with dismissal, lack of action, disdain, rejection, or a lack of seriousness, then most people need to follow the chain of command with their information in the hope of someone listening, and actioning, the issues raised. What happens then, when immediate reports have become Yes people, following the directed narrative from others in authority, without question or care for the impacts to others? It means the person trying to communicate the most critical information for the sake of the greater good becomes the enemy. When people are shut down by others who are too scared to speak up and pass on information in trying to save their own job, they also become a bully in their own right. To limit the voice of any person who attempts to provide critical information perpetuates bullying at all levels. This makes absolutely zero sense in the grand scheme of things. For every person silenced for some unknown agenda, the critical issue simply grows and grows, and more people become aware of it, affected by it, and unhappy, until eventually it causes significantly more damage to everyone involved. Not to mention the toxic and divisionary environments it promotes and maintains.
When an environment or culture has become so disjointed, people are consumed with their own survival. Many may know their silence, engagement with poor treatment toward others, or blatant exploitation and provision of misinformation about others, is wrong. In the absence of a strong conscience, or due to trying to ensure their own survival, promotions, or growth remains unaffected, many are willing to sacrifice others to save themselves. This cycle of negativity, bullshit, unfair treatment, and lack of care and compassion, simply leads to more of the same. It doesn't matter how many times the dominant narratives of supporting people, encouraging feedback, promising action, and being open to listening to other's voices are put in the spotlight, when the performance resembles a three ring circus led by the Big Bad Wolf in a lovely shade of pink lipstick, people with a conscience look for the exit door.
In relation to people's perception of the bullying they claim to have endured, obviously this is subjective. However, I don't know of many people without cause that would put themselves in harm's way, that would leave their job or situation and sacrifice income or compensation, or remove themselves from friends or colleagues on a whim. At some level, these people have been affected. Again, implementing effective psychological and psychosocial practices, which are upheld and encourage a zero tolerance bullying approach are critical.
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