Let me tell you an analogous story.

A David McCaffrey lookalike once worked fora small team in a huge organisation. The team consisted of five individuals andone overarching ruler. This ruler was not around much, personal circumstancesnot permitting, so one of the team members was carrying out a duel role of bossand interim overarching ruler (let’s call this person Romilly, which means ‘God’sbeloved one’ if you’re interested!).
Two of the team members didnot like Romilly very much; often stating that their feelings werenot personal but purely business-related. It was, however, clear that a certain amountof the animosity that existed was absolutely personal. Romilly had made decisions thatthey felt should have been discussed with them, objectives were pursued thatthey felt they should have had a say in… the usual story. They were included asand where appropriate, but as you know, not every decision is required to becleared with us underlings.

One of these team memberswas lovely but easily influenced by the other. The other was capable ofmoments of absolutely kindest and humility, but was, in essence, a bully.

A bully that bullied upward…towards Romilly.

Upward bullying is somethingthat doesn’t quite have the same level of inclusion when the issue is raised. Indeed,it is often perceived that a less senior employee will usually have more support from their employer for onereason or another (for example, avoiding risk from an organisational point ofview) than a manager may receive.

So, what can cause upwardbullying to occur?

It can be for a number of reasons,such as organisations going through periods of rapid change and driven byvolatility, instability, growth or expansion, disgruntled employees upset aboutchange can react by blaming their manager and respond by bullying them,especially if staff feel ‘left out of the loop’ or ‘in the dark’ when changesoccur, inadequate frameworks, systems, and processes across the human resourcefunction… or simply because they do not like a person.

Certainly,in the case above, it was a matter of not liking the person who was now theboss coupled with the fact there had been a number of structural changes and theintroduction of someone that looked like me!

Fromday one, my lookalike was not entirely made to feel welcome by one of the two (‘EasilyLed’ was always lovely), though they did form a bond over very similar intereststhat, at the time, seemed to have broken the proverbial ice.

Yetthe upward bullying continued, despite friendly conversations with thiscolleague about their behaviour. Being old fashioned, my lookalike believed thatyou should have respect for your boss, certainly if you are a subordinate.  

Upwardbullying of Romilly had the effect of causing her to lose confidence in her own abilities, feel less satisfied in her job andpotentially undermined the achievement of business objectives. Other scenarios involvingthe bully included a failure to comply with rules, failure to meet deadlinesand attend meetings on time, always being late when Romilly wasn’t at work, a disrespectfulattitude in public and in meetings to undermine Romilly’s authority in front ofothers and increasing the incidence of gossip and ‘chatter’ that occurred amongststaff. All of this allowed the bully to make unrealistic demands and dictateunrealistic expectations.

The apotheosis of this situation was that the individual in questionfelt they had a sense of entitlement because they were best friends with the ‘currentlyabsent’ overarching ruler and had been working there for a long time. They resentedbeing managed; despite identified performance issues, and would always respondto suggested changes with “we’ve always done it this way”. All of this destabilisedthe workplace harmony with the sole intention of blocking any change that wouldforce them to lift their game. There is no doubt that this individual washighly knowledgeable in their field of ‘deep-sea diving’, but they used this asa weapon of superiority.

The aforementioned inappropriate relationship with the ‘currently absent’overarching ruler meant that none of the above was addressed nor even acknowledged.Even when the ‘currently absent’ ruler had been present in meetings and some ofthese behaviours had taken place, there was nothing said or done. Yet when the ‘currentlyabsent’ ruler wasn’t present, a capricious and cruel series of behaviours weredisplayed towards Romilly, behaviours at odds with everything we know to be professional. 

If you were to use a psychological slant to address the aforementioned,you may conclude that the bully had narcissistic traits, low self-reflectionand high self-esteem, (not low, as sometimes assumed) and the confidence totake on someone with greater formal power.

Ultimately, these behaviours were addressed formally, with a short but apparentlysincere attempt to acknowledge their part in things (gifts were even given tooffer thanks for their efforts), but it didn’t last and things came to a headover a completely innocuous subject that was related to a topic so far removedfrom being personal, you would have to hear it to believe it.

So, in order to take the heat off their aggressive behaviour, the bully resortedto embark on a grievance process that shifted the focus of any scrutiny awayfrom themselves and onto Romilly and a colleague.

So, what happened to this bully?

Absolutely nothing.

Because this organisation doesn’t address bullying.They feel that knowledge and experience are an acceptable substitute forunprofessional and malicious behaviour, which is why these situations continue ad nauseam.

Colleagues will leave; others will come in and facethe same situation… maybe not immediately, but eventually. A bully cannot hidetheir behaviour forever. They can temper it, but their true nature will alwaysbe revealed.

Of course, in this situation, the ‘currently absent’overarching ruler is complicit in the bullying, as they are unwilling to doanything about it and constantly offer the bully their support. They refused tosee anything negative about their behaviour. That is perhaps the scariest thing.But what is it they say? ‘It’s not what you know, but who you know.’

Others would try to help and offer support to Romillybut to little avail, as the forces of darkness are a resource that does notserve humans but its own, self-serving agenda. Romilly, incidentally, was anexcellent boss; trying to make changes in a world where changes are anthemia toothers. She was considerate, knowledgeable, kind, compassionate and really wantedto make a difference in her occupation and in the forum she worked in. But shewas always being forced to ice-skate uphill, never being offered a hand if itlooked as though she was going to fall.

So, it is left to us to raise the profile ofbullying, in all its forms. We can continue to work on stamping it out in theworkplace, in schools, the NHS… anywhere it occurs. It will require patience, constanteducation and support, but it can be done.

Maybe then we live in a world and our children livein a world, where bullying is the exception, not the rule.