Don’t worry about those who talk behind your back, they’re behind you for a reason.
– Anonymous.
Watching the first 2020 presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden was a stark reminder that, despite all the goodness in our world, toxic bullies land in leadership positions and create widespread havoc, destruction and chaos. And though we may wish otherwise, our workplaces are not immune to the impact of bullies, tyrants and tormentors. Don’t get me wrong. Some of the best, most giving, caring and selfless people move into leadership positions where they help their employees and organizations succeed. But not always. Sometimes, it’s backstabbing, one-upping, narcissistic bullies that rise to the top. And this isn’t just in academia. It’s the case in organizations of all sizes and shapes.
A 2017 research study published by Klaus J. Templer in the journal, Personality and Individual Differences, took a deep dive into why toxic people tend to get ahead at work. The author conducted a survey of Singapore employees in a variety of industries and positions and asked them how they viewed their political skills in the workplace. He also determined their scores on the H-Factor of Personality. The “H” in the H-factor stands for honesty-humility, which according to Kibeom Lee and Michael C. Ashton, authors of The H Factor of Personality, Why Some People are Manipulative, Self-Entitled, Materialistic, and Exploitive—And Why it Matters for Everyone, is one of the six basic dimensions of the human personality. In a nutshell, people with high levels of H are sincere and modest while people who have low levels are deceitful and pretentious. Dr. Templer finished out the research by asking bosses to rate their employees in terms of political skill and job performance.
What he found shouldn’t come as a surprise. Toxic employees, or those who have low levels of H, were rated by their bosses as having good political skills and were also more likely to be rated as top performers. “In other words,” Dr. Templer wrote in a 2018 Harvard Business Review article, “while not all toxic people possess political skill, those toxic people who use political skill effectively in the eyes of their bosses are seen as better performers. And as we all know, those who are seen as top performers are more likely to be promoted.”
As a scholar, Dr. Templer is bound to use scholarly terms like “political skills” and must rely on other peer-reviewed and published research, like the H-factor scale, that provides a framework for consistently analyzing social issues and constructs. But for me, I am not a scholar, so I can, without apology, state my belief which is based on my own personal experience, that toxic people get ahead because they are manipulative, play dirty, and love to shore up sympathy by painting themselves as victims and martyrs. And somehow, despite being nasty people, they still remain likeable.
According to the Workplace Bullying Institute, 38 percent of Americans are bullied or witness bullying at work, with 60 percent of the targets being women. Interestingly, while the majority of bullies are men, women bullies still account for 40 percent of the perpetrators and tend to bully women more than they bully those of the opposite sex.
The targets of bullies are probably a lot like me and a lot like the people reading this article. “They’re often smart, competent, and self-assured,” writes Sally Kane of The Balance Careers, an online resource for job seekers. “In fact, the most veteran and skilled person in the workgroup is often a bully’s target. Bullies often go after employees who are liked by their supervisors and praised for their performances.”
Kane also makes a point to note that bullies often target people who are new to the workplace or who have not yet developed supportive relationships. If you are being bullied and want to figure out what about you attracted the bully, check out Kane’s article. She lists a myriad of reasons why bullies pick certain victims, ranging from age, to physical traits, to ethnicity, to likeability and integrity.
While it certainly does help to understand the “why” behind a bullies’ choices, I feel that it’s more important to have a firm understanding of how you get away from the bully without their evil sauce being permanently smeared all over your face or having to quit a job you love. Here are the tips I share with students and which I have used with success over the years.
First, if you are picked on in a meeting or in a public setting, you need to address it then and there. This doesn’t mean you have to be confrontational or condescending or make everyone in the room feel uncomfortable. It does mean that you will have to have the courage to say something right away rather than lying in bed for nights going over and over how you wish you had spoken up.
One of the most useful ways to confront bad behavior in the workplace, especially bullying behavior, is to use “I” statements. “I” statements allow us to take away the power of the offender by showing her, and the entire room, how certain actions affect others. They are brief, non-blameful descriptions of an unacceptable behavior and demonstrate the effect this behavior has on you.
So, instead of saying: “I hate it when you call me kiddo! You are patronizing me in front of everyone!” You could say something like, “When you call me kiddo, especially in front of my peers, I feel patronized.” Boom. Who could argue with that? “I” statements give the bully the opportunity to apologize. It could even help someone who wasn’t aware that they were bullying see how their words and actions are being interpreted by others.
Sometimes, however, bullying isn’t happening in front of others. Sometime bullying is more insidious, happening in the dark corners of classrooms, at the water cooler, or behind your back as you walk through the hallways. In these cases, your best course of action is to document, in detail, what is happening and how it is impacting you. Keep a journal of dates and examples and, like an attorney heading to court, build up a case. When the time is right, go to your supervisor or human resources and share the experiences.
But what happens if your supervisor or HR does nothing? Or, what should you do if your boss is an unstoppable bully? For some people, what happens at work can stay at work, and bad behavior can be tolerated with relatively minor discomfort. For others, being treated poorly or abused, even minorly, can affect your psychological and physical health. If what happens at work impacts you deeply, then you need to take a hard look at whether or not it is worth it for you to stay.
“If you have exhausted your chain of command, both internally and through HR, and gotten no proper response, it is time to cut your losses and leave the company,” said author and business leader Tracey C. Jones in a Forbes interview. “Please remember that this is not a reflection on you personally. This type of dysfunction was always there and will be there long after you leave; it’s just that you didn’t see it. They say nice guys finish last, but that’s because we’re not running the rat race. After all, who wants to compete with a rat? As the adage goes, ‘I’d rather eat crumbs with bums, than steaks with snakes.’
No matter what you decide, at the end of the day it is imperative that you know and believe that workplace bullying is real, and that being a victim of workplace bullying is not a reflection of who you are or the quality of your contributions.
For the supervisors out there, it is your responsibility to create a safe environment and not sweep reports of bullying under the rug.
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