Leadership and the Workplace Bully

There is a very good article in today's (3/26/2008) New York Times on work place bully's. That article along with other linked articles and blogs and comments tell a story that we as leaders (manager or not) is important to the success and efficient functioning of our organizations.

A work place bully cuts efficiency, limits effectiveness, increases turnover, reduces communication, hurts our companies, hurts our people - the negatives go on and on. The damage to the individuals being bullied and our ability as leaders to contribute to the success of our company makes quick action a necessity.

Most of us who have been around for a few years have encountered workplace bullies and had to deal with them. My first encounter was at General Electric. At GE (many years ago) the company decided that management by "yelling" was not appropriate and that it was going to stop. We had one manager, in payroll, who had a history of yelling at employees in staff meetings, one-on-one's and occasionally in the hall way. The directive came down - no more yelling. I heard several times from people in that area of the building that he now feared loosing his job - and spent much more time in his office with the door closed. The people in payroll were noticeably calmer and the race to get out of that manager's area slowed.

Since that time I've dealt with situations where one employee didn't like another or where a manager had a problem with a member of his group. My approach has always been to try to take the emotion out of the situation - after all we are professionals. In some cases counselling has worked - either with me or with HR. In one case I moved the person at the receiving end of the bullying to another group where he was much happier and his performance improved dramatically. But I have had people leave - in one case there was a performance issue where despite counseling and changing the individuals position he never recovered. I don't know if I simply intervened to late or whether there were other issues.

Rereading the article I know that I will be more vigilant in the future to insure that this does not happen in my organization.

New York Time article - http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/25/health/25well.html?em&ex=1206676800&en=31b986ad49824972&ei=5087%0A

New York Times blog post - http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/11/meet-the-work-bully/