Vicki Anderson

I am appalled to hear about the latest victim of workplace bullying in Virginia where a man committed suicide because of a bullying boss. What is so crazy to me is that his coworkers knew about it and were saddened by it, but it took too long for the administration to do anything about it. The man made 17 calls to administration in the week leading up to the suicide. We do not know what action the administration planned to take, just that it is too late.

The problem with this situation is that it not only affects the person being bullied, but the coworkers as well. It is painful to watch it happening to someone else, wondering if it will happen to you. The tension can be enormous. You want the other person to speak up, but they are often so fearful of losing their job that they just try to measure up the best they can and take it. Unfortunately, this is usually about power, not performance, and unless someone else steps in or the person being bullied steps up, the bullying will not stop.

The tension created in these situations usually results in less performance overall because people are operating out of fear instead of working for continuous improvement and customer satisfaction. Organizations that take care of employees first know that the employee will in turn take care of the customer, which will take care of the business.

Be ever vigilant for people who use their position to wield their power. The successful leaders know that it is the people they help to succeed who will make them look good. In order to do that, you must coach, teach, and grow your staff. This is not possible if you are driving them with a whip. Scared people don’t grow and they don’t look out for anyone but themselves.

I am a big fan of the Crucial Conversations and Crucial Confrontations books that help people talk in situations that are emotional, yet have high consequences. One of the lessons I have learned that I was reminded of lately is the way we often play the victim. We love to complain about the other person and what they are doing to us. For many reasons we feel we are justified in complaining because we feel we have no alternative to change the situation.

We are afraid to address performance problems of employees or difficult bosses who treat us unfairly. However, the content in the books provides great alternatives for addressing problems in ways that reduce defensiveness on both sides. As the problem escalates without being properly addressed, it is easy to put all the blame on the other person, but I want to stop you right there. Have you really thought about your part in the situation?

Did you go along with the behavior and fail to say it was unacceptable? We often let something slide once or twice thinking it was an anomaly and it will rectify itself. However, when it happens again and again, we now get more irritated and don’t know how to bring up the subject without getting emotional ourselves. I think the key is identifying that we had a part in the problem. If you observe inappropriate behavior or are the object of inappropriate behavior, it is important to say so. As a leader, this is very important if you want to have good performance from your employees. Don’t wait until the problem has happened three or four times before you say something. If you mention it the first time or two it becomes information, but by the third or fourth time, it becomes accusation, blaming, and defensiveness.

Think about it. If someone tells you about something you did wrong after you have done it that way for a period of time, wouldn’t you be embarrassed? Why didn’t they say something before?

If someone is mistreating you, own the fact that that you have been part of the problem by not speaking up previously. You could say that you didn’t know how to handle it before or that you would like to discuss what you would like to see in the future. The other person may or may not be as agreeable as you would like, but face it. You have had more time to think about it. Give them some time if it appears to be causing the other person difficulty. Set a time to get back to discuss it again. Just because the other person gets emotional does not mean it didn’t work. It’s just their immediate response. Refrain from throwing down the gauntlet and issuing ultimatums. Recognize your part and realize that in any relationship, it takes two.

Many people who are trying to make lifestyle changes get coaches. There are coaches for weight loss, smoking cessation, alcohol and drug addiction, and all kinds of skill training. It is a proven fact that if you have someone to support you with positive reinforcement or to help you stay motivated, you are more likely to make the changes long lasting.

This concept is also true for leadership skills. Many people have started using coaches to help them discuss their approaches to leading and help them learn through their immediate situations. However, I don’t think there is enough emphasis on support for changing behavior.

I was talking to a client the other day and suggested that she state in front of her staff that she is trying to be a better manager. She should say that she realizes that the way she has behaved in the past has been sometimes inappropriate and she plans to change that. She should ask for their help and support while she learns to be a better manager. People could gently let her know if she was falling off the wagon or they could give her kudos when she seems to be doing it right.

The benefit of doing this is not only support for the manager, but it makes the staff look at the manager differently and perhaps judge with different criteria. Many times people try to change, but others still view them with the same eyes, so they never get the benefit of others seeing the change. Trust is built on the behaviors we see, not the behaviors we say we will do. Therefore, if you want someone to believe you are trying to be better, you have to do things they will see. However, if they aren’t looking for it, they still might not see it.

What do you think? Does this make a person seem strong or weak to do this? To me, it is no different from the alcoholic who stands up and and says “I’m an alcoholic and I need your help.” It is owning the problem and showing that you are earnest about fixing it.

I just read an article this morning that the New York state assembly is considering a law against workplace bullying. What makes me mad is that we need one!

In my years of work in human resources and consulting with management, it never fails to amaze me that workplace bullies get away with it. They are often people who have some special knowledge that the boss doesn’t think he can do without, so he doesn’t want to take any risk of losing him. Or, the bully has a protector in a power position. Therefore, there are no repercussions for the bad management. Instead, they lose good employees who refuse to put up with their shenanigans. Unfortunately, today many people are stuck because there aren’t many other job options for them to jump to.

The employers don’t want to have this law because they think it will keep them from holding employees accountable. However, I think there is a definite difference between being clear to employees about what standard of performance you want and bullying. There are, of course, employees who will abuse the system and put forth trivial suits that will cost money on both sides, but if you are doing your management right, this should be minimized.

Just as unions came about because people needed to be protected against bad management practices, now someone feels we need another law to protect people against bad management. It is just another example of lack of job ownership. Managers often talk about the need for employees to own their job and take initiative. I think it’s time that managers take ownership of their jobs and start training, coaching, and reinforcing good management skills. It is just dumb business to let good employees work under bullying bosses.

What happens after a mistake differentiates the people developers from the people limiters. I have always learned that after an accident, a mistake, or a failure of any kind, you ask three questions: 1) What happened? 2) Why did it happen? and 3) How can we keep it from happening again?

There is no “Who did it?” in those three questions. Of course, “who did it” is part of the “what happened” but the focus is on the situation, issue, or behavior, not the person. The assumption is that people don’t make mistakes on purpose. They more likely make mistakes because they were distracted, in a hurry, didn’t think a certain step in a process was necessary, or because they have always done it that way and no mistake ever happened before.

As humans, we all make mistakes, but the higher the cost of the mistake, the more we have a tendency to blame. However, as leaders we have the capability to help people learn from them so they don’t repeat those mistakes. The more that you talk about the three questions above, the less likely people are going to hide mistakes and the more likely you will get to the root cause of the problem to solve it.

Make sure that blame doesn’t come through in your voice tone even though you may be measuring your words. Your body language and voice tone convey much more than the words you use. If you tend to be one who gets emotional easily, perhaps you can learn to do a “slow blink” as a former colleague used to say. Stop and think before you react to the information just presented. It might keep you from having to go back and apologize later for overreacting.

If you are going to lead, you must learn to really solve problems because blaming is only surface problem solving. It does not keep it from happening again. It only tends to make the person hide problems until caught, which exacerbates the issue. If you are going to be a people developer you must make it safe for people to report problems so they can be fixed. Involve them in the process and help them learn for themselves.