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Top ten ways to create a hostile workplace
By Ben | February 26, 2008
Bullies at work can ruin a culture, destroy productivity and make your life miserable. Many people focus only on bullying bosses, but I’ve seen just as many coworkers and employees use these bullying methods as I have managers and supervisors. Before you read the top ten I’ve seen, please think for a moment. What bullying methods used by whom, have you seen most?
Have you seen these techniques ruining your workplace?
- Yelling, physical threats (overt or subtle) and personal attacks.
- Verbal abuse, emotional intimidation, personal insults and attacks (in private and in public). Put-downs and humiliating, demeaning, rude, cruel, insulting, mocking and embarrassing comments. False accusations (especially outrageous), character assassination.
- Harassing based on race, religion, gender and physical attributes. Sexual contact, lewd suggestions, name-calling, teasing and personal jokes (sometimes overtly nasty, or threatening or sometimes given with laughter as in, “I was just kidding” in order to make it hard for you to fight back.
- Backstabbing, spreading rumors and gossip, manipulating, lying, distorting, evading, hypocrisy and exposing your problems and mistakes.
- Taking the credit; spreading the blame. Withholding information and then cutting you down for not knowing or for failing.
- Anonymous attacks and cyber-bullying – flaming e-mails and porn. Invading your personal space and privacy – rummaging through your desk, listening to phone calls, asking extremely personal questions, eating your food.
- Hypersensitive, over-reactions, throwing tantrums (drama queens) – so you walk on egg shells, back off in order to avoid a scene, or beg forgiveness as if you really did something wrong.
- Dishonest evaluations – praising and promoting favorites, giving slackers good evaluations and destroying careers of people the bully doesn’t like.
- Demeaning at meetings – interrupting, ignoring, laughing, non-verbal comments behind your back (rude noises, body language, facial gestures, answering phone, working on computer).
- Forming cliques and ganging up. Turf wars about budgets, hiring, copiers and coffee machines.
Most bullies use combinations of these methods.
We’ve all seen the effects of bullies and the hostile workplace they create. There’s increased hostility, tension, selfishness, turf wars, sick leave, stress related disabilities, turn over and legal actions. People become isolated, do busy work with no important results and waste huge chunks of time talking about the latest episodes. Effort is diffused instead of aligned. Promotions are based on sucking up to the most difficult and nasty people, not on merit.
Teamwork, productivity, responsibility, efficiency, creativity and taking reasonable risks are decreased. The best people leave as soon as they can.
The wrong people or the wrong culture can always find ways to destroy the best operational systems. Your pipeline will leak money and your profits will plummet.
I’ll go into solutions in future posts, but I want to mention one frequently used tactic that does not work to stop dedicated bullies. It’s based on the false assumption that if we – educate, explain, understand, reason, show the consequences, accept, forgive or make enough attempts to satisfy bullies – then they will become reasonable, civil, professional, friendly and good to work with. That approach only stops people who are not really bullies, but have forgotten themselves one time and behaved badly.
Determined bullies don’t take your acquiescence as kindness. They take your giving in as weakness and an invitation to grab for more. Bullies bully repeatedly and without real remorse. You won’t get a sincere apology from them. A sincere apology doesn’t mean anything about how they look. It means that they change and stop bullying.
I’d like to hear your horror or success stories.
Topics: Coaching, Consulting, Eliminate Low Attitudes CD, Hostile Workplace, Public Speaking, Stop Bullies Book | 42 Comments »
February 28th, 2008 at 12:05 am
Work – Business Manager acts like she knows what is best for her children “co-workers”. I never hear the end of the mistakes I make and yet she makes them also. She is great at profiling all the employees and heaven help us if we work outside of the box (profiling). Everyone she comes in contact with gets the run down on the office staff. We have had two different “major boss” changes and they were given the run down each time. She full fills their every need and proves her worth and we are her peons. How do I talk to my main boss, she is my second boss, about her tactics and the effects on my performance, confidence and the morale of the office? We all want to leave. Most of us have been there 18 years.
February 28th, 2008 at 10:39 am
Hi Colleen,
I’m so sorry you’re in a tough spot.
She’s a well-known type. First, she’s a know-it-all who enjoys putting people down. Second, she’s also the town gossip, dishing the dirt on everybody. Bullies like her rarely change because of pressure from below. After all, she does know best.
Doesn’t she sound like some parents that we all know who think the best way to help their children is to pound them relentlessly and embarrass them in public. Deep down, they do feel self-satisfied and righteous.
Know-it-all bullies and town-gossips sometimes change when there’s strong, consistent pressure from above. The pressure must be coupled with, “Change or you’re gone.”
I assume you’ve told her how you feel and have pointed out the effects she has in creating a hostile workplace and in destroying teamwork. But she hasn’t changed.
Since she’s probably made herself seem indispensible to the bigger bosses, I think you have some difficult choices:
1. Be as straightforward as you can with the bigger boss, knowing that your manager will find out and try to get you fired.
2. Go to the bigger boss with most of the team in hopes that the weight of numbers will sway the bigger boss.
3. Size up your bigger bosses until you think you have one who will act wisely and keep you from getting terminated.
4. Transfer to another department or look for another job – which is hard if you’ve been there 18 years.
5. Take it as best you can until you retire.
You should realize that your manager will take whatever you do as mutiny and will try to strike back.
I’m sorry the choices are difficult, but I’ve rarely seen know-it-alls and town-gossips change. You’re in a tough fight.
Good luck,
Ben
April 2nd, 2008 at 10:23 am
I work for a five (5) member Park Board and find that at least of 50% or more of these techniques are emulated by various different members of this Board in the way they treat me. Besides this, they often violate the Open Meetings Act (Law) with total disregard to how it affects my working relationship with them and my subordinates – they consantly undermine my authority and distort issues with my staff. Basically, everthing that is wrong with our agency at this time is my fault and I’m consistantly used as the scape-goat! Members of this previous Board gave me an overall rating of 8.5 on a 10 scale less than a year ago, and thorugh an election process, there has been a dynamic change of the members, and recently I only recieved an overall rating of 5.2 It’s obvious that this Board wants me out, I’m in a no-win situation; so I’ve resigned and I’ve accept a new job – a better job I believe. I wish the agency and the staff I leave behind well, but I hope this unethical Board eventually gets what they deserve!
April 2nd, 2008 at 8:12 pm
Hi Brian,
I sorry they ganged up on you. Maybe you did something you don’t even know about or maybe it was political or maybe someone has a relative they want appointed or maybe one of you staff undercut you and the new Board believed them – without getting your evidence or giving you a chance.
Whatever their reasons, since you couldn’t stop it, I’m glad you’re gone and have a better job. There’s no point staying and getting beaten when you could get out.
By the way, I often see new “management/leadership/boards” purging previous leadership and getting their own people in.
If you encounter the same treatment at the new job, then we have to look for a pattern.
Best wishes,
Ben
April 7th, 2008 at 9:15 pm
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May 5th, 2008 at 10:31 pm
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May 21st, 2008 at 8:23 pm
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November 21st, 2008 at 8:06 pm
[...] claims or harassment claims from victims who endured the bullying. Moreover, employers stand to lose in productivity, workplace morale and eventually profits, Leichtling [...]
November 22nd, 2008 at 11:46 am
I was recruited by an international engineering firm to do publie relations on a major highway construction project located 2,000 miles from my home. I was the only professional female on the job. After I moved 2,000 miles, my direct supervisor ordered me not to work, in effect, to only answer phone calls, not proactively do the work I was hired to do.
He also wanted me to go to dinner and/or lunch with him 3-4 times a week and continually asked personal questions, such as what I was doing over the weekend.
When I began refusing to go to dinner with him, he re-assigned me to an isolated office 10 miles from town on one of the most dangerous highways in America, where I was usually alone. When I told him I felt unsafe, I was told to work at home, effectively isolating me. He began to ignore me (at one point not speaking to me for two months), make demeaning comments, and actively try to sabotage my work. Yelling screaming and racial comments were practically a daily occurrence.
Pushed to the limit (and trapped because I bought a home in this location), I called upper management and told them I felt unsafe and was in a hostile work environment. They did nothing. I finally felt I had no recourse but to file an EEOC discimination complaint. The EEOC could not substantiate my claims because none of my coworkers substantiated my story.
After I filed the complaint, he backed off for a while but of course the abuse increased again. He also enlisted other men on the job to join him in his bullying tactics. They made comments about my clothing, sexuality, etc., and minimized my work. I also was assigned to take meeting minutes (far below my skill level) at meetings, where I was usually the only woman present.
I have never been so miserable at a job. I finally resigned in June 2008 after being yelled at yet again. I have been unemployed for five months (they are giving me a bad reference) and am on the verge of foreclosure on my home. When I resigned, HR sent me a letter offering me my job back and saying they would conduct an investigation. In the same letter, however, they called me a liar and said I had no basis for my allegations. In short, they were far more concerned about protecting themselves from liability than doing the right thing. Other women who worked for my supervisor in the past had also filed complaints which were found to be without merit.
These awful, insecure bullies have done their best to ruin me emotionally and financially. Their conduct was illegal. Yet, my lawyer says that by offering me my job back (who would possibly want it back?) they trumped any legal claim I may have had.
There’s something very wrong in America when people get away with this behavior. I feel I have no recourse and the bad reference they are giving me is the only one I’ve ever had in a 30-year career. I tell myself they are miserable people and will get their just deserts but it’s not much consolation at this point.
November 25th, 2008 at 11:38 am
Hi Patti,
Those rats! Obviously, they know what’s going on, but won’t do anything about it. I always think a better lawyer would have helped, but I really don’t know that.
I’m so sorry. That’s the way life has always been through all of history, through all of our ancestors and even in our time. We make some progress but it’ll never be wiped out completely. That’s what low-life humans do.
And there is no consolation. There’s only rallying your courage, strength and determination to do better despite the rats (I could use other words). Remember your ancestors (all of our ancestors). Is there anyone, when you think of him/her and what they went through, that memory, alive and right where you need it, gives you the strength to carry on?
Even in rotten economic times, take heart! Find good people to help you. That’s all we can do.
Best wishes,
Ben
December 3rd, 2008 at 1:34 am
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January 23rd, 2009 at 7:13 pm
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January 30th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
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February 12th, 2009 at 9:38 pm
There is a guy at work who has a huge ego. Is is smart but he also has the maturity of a 13 year old. He demeans people and get’s his ‘crowd’ to laugh and get behind his bullying. How can I stop this?
February 13th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
Hi Dave,
Thanks for the comment.
I see big egos, cliques and junior high school type cutting-out in almost every area of every company I’ve worked at or consulted for.
Use the image of the staircase, coupled with the 5-step process that I show in figure 3 (page 138) of my book, “How to Stop Bullies in Their Tracks” (http://www.bulliesbegoneblog.com/2008/01/28/how-to-stop-bullies-book-reviewed-in-denver-business-journal/), to develop the perseverance and resilience you’ll need.
Start at the bottom with a peaceful talk. If that doesn’t work (as it never does against bullies), you’ll have to get more assertive and public.
Try to get management involved. Always use examples that make a business case that unprofessional behavior decreases productivity. Document, document, document.
Specific tactics must be designed to fit your specific situation. You’ll get the greatest benefit from coaching to design more specific suggestions.
Best wishes,
Ben
July 1st, 2009 at 3:49 pm
[...] When human resource departments push employee satisfaction initiatives at work, too often they encourage the most selfish, negative and hostile employees to harass, bully and abuse coworkers and supervisors. [...]
July 3rd, 2009 at 12:01 pm
[...] When human resource departments push employee satisfaction initiatives at work, too often they encourage the most selfish, negative and hostile employees to harass, bully and abuse coworkers and supervisors. [...]
September 4th, 2009 at 12:24 am
[...] These vampires go from team to team, leaving a wake of corpses, but hiding their harassment and abuse behind good-sounding excuses and justifications. It’s always someone else’s fault and everyone’s against them. [...]
October 15th, 2009 at 10:49 am
BIG blue eyes, blonde, etc. She has coherced the black women into assisting her.They think this is the way to ‘get ahead.’ She comes in at 11 and leaves at 3:30.Doesn’t take LEAVE for her continual absences in the am and pm. She lies constantly.Spreads/invents malicious gossip.Gives HERSELF annual awards.I have reported her and her abuses but NO ONE either wants to listen or seems to care.She knows I will have nothing to do with her and she should never ever mess with me again.Management believes whatever she says!!This is the federal sector and YOUR tax dollars!! It’s like why bother being a decent person if bullies and deviants are allowed to run everything!!
October 19th, 2009 at 10:45 am
Hi Dawn,
Right. Anger is a great builder of energy (motivation) but lousy at developing effective tactics. Cool heads develop better tactics.
Unfortunately, because you’re in the government or non-profits or public sector organizations, you probably won’t succeed. Those organizations tend to tolerate and, therefore, become hot beds of stealth bullying.
The manipulative thrive. Stealth bullies are hard to stop because they’re difficult to expose. But sometimes, they can be gotten with careful planning.
That’s why firing is often necessary. I’m always suspicious when companies say they don’t fire anyone.
See “Eliminate the High Cost of Low Attitudes.”
Sorry and good luck,
Ben
October 12th, 2011 at 8:03 am
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November 23rd, 2011 at 3:14 pm
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December 14th, 2011 at 11:07 pm
[...] Ignoring them. We hope they’ll stop because they aren’t getting the attention or control they crave. [...]
December 20th, 2011 at 2:38 pm
I won a job at a “prestigious” University clinic. I was forewarned about the “coveted” job being not always a great work environment. I didn’t listen. I pursued the job lead and won over my prospective employers. I now wish I hadn’t. The clinic (which was physically quite beautiful) was rife with points 2, 4, 5, 7, and 10. I am just now beginning to recover a month and half later. (Oh yes the clique bullies got me fired… but with full recommendation for rehire within the University health system) LOL.
I’m not sure where I’ll go from here.
December 21st, 2011 at 10:26 pm
[...] in your department or organization is turned off and tuned out. Are they all just a bunch of self-indulgent, narcissistic, lazy slackers or a rotten generation – or have you failed [...]
December 22nd, 2011 at 6:29 pm
Hi Lawrence,
I’m so sorry.
Sounds like a whole system locked in to collude, support, enable the bullies.
So you know not to take it personally, but to get into the job hunting game asap. Be determined even though it’s very difficult.
Beware: Academic environments and hospitals are hotbeds of bullies and their cliques.
If you need coaching to recover your strength, courage and determination, call me at 1-877-8BULLIES (877-828-5543).
Best wishes,
Ben
December 28th, 2011 at 5:17 pm
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June 28th, 2012 at 7:13 am
[...] as a supervisor, she’s a bust. She doesn’t tell her staff what she needs and seems to delight in harassing them when they do things wrong. She publicly criticizes anything she doesn’t agree with, loudly and relentlessly. She blames [...]
July 29th, 2012 at 2:38 pm
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August 5th, 2012 at 6:25 pm
[...] a leader or manager, 10 ways to create a culture of entitlement at work [...]
August 19th, 2012 at 4:30 pm
[...] Most insidious are negative employees who come to work on time each day and are good workers technically, so traditional performance evaluations will grade them adequate or even better. They use negativity for bullying to get control. [...]
September 2nd, 2012 at 5:12 pm
[...] example, at a particular company many managers often complained about the reasons their company hadn’t encouraged their promotion to leadership [...]
September 9th, 2012 at 8:53 am
[...] Some bosses hurl rattlesnakes downstream. Some employees toss them upstream to make a supervisor responsible for satisfying them. [...]
January 20th, 2013 at 12:05 pm
I work for healthcare facility. My newly appointed supervisor have been sending electronic message to spy on me to find fault on me. When on of those coworker told me in secretive way I woke up.
No wonder some of them are down, abusive toward me. Little my supervisor is aggigator via eMails. I managed to get a copy of one of her e-mail.
I feel ashamed sadned, violated. I am racially diffirent from all of my coworkers. To make the matters worse
I am offially hurt to feel in this way. I am a senior to half of my coworkers.
I feel osha, and my rights of privacy may have violated by my new supervisor. I have paper evidances. What shall I do?
January 22nd, 2013 at 11:01 am
Hi Goodman,
You’re in a big mess.
Of course, it’s wrong but that outrage won’t help. Being strong and tactically will help. You need a good lawyer to tell you what you need to gather as documentation. I like “the undercover Lawyer” (www.undercoverlawyer.com). Go to HR but don’t use the company lawyer.
In the meantime, access all your strength, courage and fighting spirit. Don’t give in.
“A gentleman will not insult me, and no man not a gentleman can insult me.” Frederick Douglass
Best wishes,
Ben