Hello
Well, bullying is in the headlines again, for all the wrong reasons. It’s probably fair to say that it is a rare event when bullying makes the headlines for the right reasons.
I recently produced a video where I talked about the fact that there could be several reasons for bullying type behaviours. The essence of that video was this.
Although there are very many reasons that people bully, in my experience the main three reasons (what I have observed as I have helped people over the years) are as follows:
1.Because they are unaware, they just don’t know that they are doing it.
2.Perhaps they are low on empathy, they could be, but not necessarily, on the psychopathic scale. They could also be on the narcissistic scale (maybe a grandiose type narcissist or a vulnerable type narcissist).
3.Sometimes the bully is not ok within themselves. Their self-esteem and sense of self-worth are low. Their temporary reprieve being when they make others feel miserable. Not nice, but sometimes effective (for them!).
In many ways its not worth the effort, certainly initially, when dealing with a bully to try and diagnose, a diagnosis could be entirely wrong. It might not be reliable. It might not be valid. It may also waste time, rather than addressing the situation.
I think more importantly and more usefully is to think about the bully as being flawed.
We’re all flawed, and none of us are perfect.
The low empathy individual, the low esteem individual, or also indeed the ‘unaware type’ individual are all flawed in different ways.
The problem arises when that lack of awareness harms others.
The person who’s unaware, and then is made aware about their behaviours,
and how those behaviours might amount to bullying is often the easiest to deal with, because as often as not when they realise what they have done, they want to change, and that’s a good thing.
However, what about those people who are intransigent for whatever reason; they won’t change or are unlikely to change?
What can we do? How do we protect ourselves? Well again, there’s a lot that could be said about that subject, but I want to keep things quite brief and digestible for this post. How we can tackle the bully I will cover in a subsequent post.
So what I’m going to say is this, it is still important to understand when you’re being bullied, and how that bullying can manifest itself. For example bullying could be something as classic and obvious as screaming and shouting, directed at you and/or other people.
What might that achieve? Why would the bully do this? What does it invoke?
Well fear. Why does the bully want you afraid? Because bullying is about control… there’s a dominance hierarchy game being played here for whatever reason, and it’s purpose is to dominate.
And of course if people are fearful then they’re unlikely to speak up. The leader is unlikely to be challenged, and so the person who’s doing the shouting is unlikely or less likely to be challenged; again its worth noting that the bully is not necessarily the leader, but they are certainly somebody who is trying to influence others.
And in this case as, I’ve suggested they want to control, often by demeaning, belittling, diminishing, by putting down other people; maybe because they don’t realize, maybe because they enjoy it, maybe because it’s the only way they can feel good at that point in time.
However, screaming and shouting is not the only type of behaviour that goes on.
the list can be quite long, but let’s take two other things that are definitely in my opinion a form of bullying.
One is where your reputation is being attacked, very often behind your back,
but not necessarily. When you find out about that, and when somebody’s been doing it consistently and it wasn’t just a random outburst, that is in my opinion deliberate reputational destruction or damage.
Why would the bully do that? Where’s the control there? Well, the control is that you may then buy into that narrative, you might begin to believe the ‘newspaper headlines’ or other people might look at you in a different way which unsettles you, that may drive you down the self-esteem
and self-worth scale; you may begin to doubt yourself – so the bully may generate more power over you in that instance.
They may also want to disable you to the point where you’re too scared to go for another job or promotion because of that self-doubt. In that instance they control you even more. In actual fact the bully often knows how much you’re worth,
but they’re not going to tell you, at
all, because it gives them real pleasure to watch you struggle, and to watch you filled with that self-doubt second-guess yourself, or begin to second-guess yourself.
And of course if you do gather up enough ‘strength’ and think about going for that other job, it maybe that your reputation has been damaged to the extent that you‘re not accepted, or the terms that you want are not accepted. It’s pretty awful really when you think about it.
So that type of reputational damage from the bully to exert control is extremely dangerous.
Another thing the bully can do is, behind closed doors, privately, have a go at you.
Attack…again, demean, belittle, call into question your competence; sometimes this is wrapped up in a ‘review’ type situation.
When you observe someone do that, when it is absolutely unwarranted or unfounded, I would suggest that once more this is a form of bullying.
Unfortunately this could also take place in addition to the reputational damage. It could also be done on its own, simply to destabilize you, because it’s likely that you’ll struggle, at least a little.
And this individual (bully)…why would they do it? Well maybe it makes them feel good, as I suggested, in the moment; because it’s the only way they can feel good, or it may be because they want to control you and keep you where you are.
Maybe it’s because they feel good in that moment to watch you struggle, or it could be a combination of all of these motivations.
Whatever the motivation, it’s pernicious, it’s awful.
In summary, the bully may not know that they are bullying. They may be low in empathy and enjoy watching others struggle. They may feel bad themselves and get temporary respite by making others feel bad.
Behaviours can range from screaming and shouting, to repetitional damage, to deeply personal (often behind closed doors) attacks.
As I mentioned previously, the types of bully and the behaviours are far from exhaustive. So what to do about it?
I’ll cover that in the next post.
Best wishes
Mike
Here is a link to this month’s podcast where I talk about bullying: