There's a new breed of female bullies cropping up in workplaces across the country. According to a nationwide poll by the Employment Law Alliance:
- 45 percent of American workers say they've experienced workplace abuse.
- 40 percent of workplace bullies are women, and women bullies pick on other women more than 70 percent of the time.
- Female bullies want to undermine, berate and intimidate the weaker women in their midst.
- Being a target of a bully not only affects your work life, but can also affect your health, possibly causing headaches, loss of appetite, high blood pressure, insomnia, clinical depression, panic attacks and even PTSD.
Clearly workplace bullying is not something to be taken lightly. So why do some women do it?
- They enjoy feeling powerful, especially when the other person doesn't stand up for herself. Also, women are often less confrontational when attacked. They tend to turn their backs on bad behavior in a way men might not.
- They are threatened by the potential success of others, so they want to stop you before you outshine them or reveal their shortcomings.
- They have a perfectionist or nit-picky personality combined with superiority about their skills and abilities.
- They are affected by stress and pressure to be high performing, with more work to do and fewer people to do it.
- They have mental health problems or a personality disorder.
How do you know whether you're being bullied, or simply dealing with a difficult boss or co-worker?
- The clearest sign is that bullying is something that happens again and again -- it's not just your boss having a bad day every once and a while.
- The abuse can include yelling; intimidating or humiliating behavior, like angry criticism and personal insults; or sabotage, whether it's vicious gossip or taking credit for someone else's work.
- Generally, though, women aren't openly abusive; in fact, there's evidence that their style of bullying is usually subtler than men's.
- Women are better at reading emotions, so they're good at little digs that most men wouldn't even register: the quick glare, or turning away and talking to someone else.
Ten Tips For Dealing With Being Bullied At Work
- Don't get emotional. Bullies take pleasure in emotionally manipulating people. Stay calm and rational to diffuse the situation.
- Don't blame yourself. Acknowledge that this is not about you; it's about the bully. Don't lose your confidence, or think you are incapable or incompetent. They are usually beating you at a mind game, not based on your actual work performance.
- Do your best work. The bully's behavior will seem more justified if you aren't doing your best work, or if you do things like come to work late, take long lunches, turn in work late, etc.
- Build a support network. Instead of allowing the bully to make you retreat into your office, work on building your relationships with your coworkers so that you have support and the bully doesn't turn them against you as well (although she will try and may even be successful).
- Document everything. Keep a journal (on your personal computer or in writing, but never leave it in the office) of what happened when (and who witnessed it) so that if you need to escalate this problem to Human Resources, you have the information you need to make your case. Keep emails and notes.
- Seek help. If you think you're being bullied, it's time to start talking to others who can help you manage this situation. Try a mentor, advocate, seasoned/experienced friend, even a legal advocate who specializes in bullying and inappropriate or discriminatory behavior in the workplace. Tread lightly when approaching your human resources department. They work for the company, not you, so you have to be careful about what you share depending on how well liked and supported your bully is within the organization. HR doesn't have the luxury of keeping everything you say confidential so don't treat a meeting with them like a counseling session where you should share everything you think/feel or assume that they can or will fix the problem for you.
- Get counseling. It will help you deal with the stress, especially if the bullying is already affecting your physical and mental health. You have to take care of yourself.
- Stay healthy. Maintain a healthy and balanced lifestyle outside of work to help you cope with the madness at work. Work out, get a good night's sleep and eat a healthy diet.
- Educate yourself. Learn everything you can about bullying, your company's policies on inappropriate behavior and occupational law regarding this kind of experience. The more you know, the better your chances of successfully dealing with this situation.
- Don't expect to change the bully. Real behavior change is difficult and it takes time. You have no control over a bully's willingness to accept that they have a problem and to work on it. You can do your best to manage the situation, but it's really the company's responsibility to be observant and responsive to the needs of their workers and the general work environment. In the worst-case scenario you may need to leave your job or be prepared for a long hard fight with your bully and your employer.
***
To read more from Dr. Michelle, visit her website, www.DrMichelle.com, or visit her on Facebook.
© 2011 Dr. Michelle Callahan
Follow Dr. Michelle Callahan on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/dr_michelle
Unfortunately my supervisor wasn't one of those people who noticed her clearly bullying behavior, but in other respects, at least this is an instance of bullying where the bully gets their just deserts.
a woman in mgmt who just didn't like me. Led to me being fired. Was paid for wrongful dismissal
& those involved were reprimanded (tho lightly) Moved away. The emotion scars & bitterness
caused to me will never go away, You can't really fight management
But i really believe we can learn and grow from each bad experience we have if we do some deep thinking.
Sometimes no matter how good you try to be and how much you try to get along there will be those that delight in stirring up the pot of trouble. Its best to leave and try somewhere else if possible. But with so few jobs anymore one might have to stay where theres trouble makers. In that case i think its best to be polite but keep a distance as much as possible. I Wish you well.
in this town available to me. I had to move away (financially) Picked the wrong town.
'I'm the boss' attitude. Always have to be berating someone.
Just recently, I felt bullied by a gallery owner giving me crap about how my art looks like it came from China because it looked "too well made." Being confident in my skills gave me the spine to let the nasty comments slide off and my attitude was indifferent; I didn't cave to his self-absorbed eccentricities. He realized he couldn't make me cower and beg and he eventually bought my products.
As for the comments here about women being worse, I haven't had that experience. Women are less direct, yes. So the bullying is particularly annoying, since it can take the form of passive-aggressive type behavior. But men abuse their power just as often as women do. There's no gender bias when it comes to that character trait.
Men really don't have any excused, especially when they bully those beneath them. Most of the women-women bullying I've seen has been due to competition, but the Men bullying I've seen has been a boss terrorizing his workers, and there's no cause for that.
Certainly males are guilty too, but there is something very pernicious and harder to pin down about about the female MO here.
I worked for myself, but I was married to one & am sure her staff suffered similarly.
With men, the heir achy is to some extent governed by physical prowess (sargents are bigger, reduces the odds - you have to be big and a be psychopath). Female bullies can be nasty and know they cant be assaulted.
I have reflected much on this. I went to ~17 schools all over the world. The worst bullying from being the new kid was from girls. Without having spoken a word to me they would detest and revile me.
They were both not able to do the job they were hired to do, knew nothing of the Plans, and created and continued contrived employee conflict situations to appear to be managing and supervising.
I was a strong performer, doing a great job, received more workloads to help others catch up and loved the job; kept a low profile; preferred to be busy for 8 hours, and did not engage in politics. Both disclosed too much personal info in attempts to win friends and influence, my first sign that they were not quite "right" and that I should keep my mouth shut about everything. Enlisting others in your support is a BAD suggestion because at the time, I went online to research bullying in the workplace and discovered what was actually happening: co-workers are so glad that you are the one targeted and not them that they will do ANYthing, say ANYthing, about you to stay in good graces with the Bully. I DID contest her accusations, each step of the way, but, it only fed her need to bully, so that is not a good suggestion, either. Sometimes, you just have to leave....I didn't realize that every day, Monday through Thursday I had diarrhea and cramping when I got home at 5pm, until I quit.
This is Part I
I'm the only female in a department full of men and the bullying going on here doesn't touch me personally, just makes me angry to watch. We have a male supervisor here that is bullying 3 of his workers who are outstanding workers (but not who he wants, he wants to get rid of them and hire 3 friends) and is fully supportive of the worthless worker friends of his.
He bullys them constantly....he breaks/tears up equipment and blames them to management. He starts projects with no money and no parts and blames them for it not being completed. He yells at them and tells them one thing and then when they do it he claims he didn't and blames them again. He has even had one of his friends fabricate stories and lie trying to get one them
fired. I've tried to speak up but management has it's blinders on and believes everything this supervisor says and I've been told to stay out of it. I'm the one that buys the parts and equipment and I see him throwing money away constantly but nothing is ever said because they just refuse to see how he bullies his men and bullies his way through his job. And they don't seem to have the sense to add 1 + 1. It is very frustrating. I see what's going on...why not them?
Good Luck!!
is if you do not agree with your boss. or the people who are kissing his a/ss ...
when you question him/her.
anyway ........i got fired
Women should not let anyone tell us that we are any more boorish than our male counterparts. We have been put down in the workplace too long to have the tables turned on us so quickly. Equality means just that--that we treat each other AND ourselves as equals and that we understand that each gender can fall victim to the same flaws.
On the other hand, one of my mentors was and still is a lady who has a 'teachers heart' and patiently taught me all she knew about aircraft engines and records.
Bullies? Sex is a toss up as far as I am concerned...I have seen both sides of the coin.
I only know that the brand of bullying I experienced, in all of it's components, including the personality flaws I perceived in these women were unique to women, mean, sick women. I am sure men have their own "brand"....against other men, and women, too, I am sure.
I have also worked in positions directly reporting to the male hospital administrator and to Medical Directors and was never treated like that. Perhaps, because they knew I was no "threat" to them; they knew their stuff and I knew mine and actually helped them.
Male-male bullying may be louder and more aggressive because men "should be able to handle that" but I'm wondering if male (bully)-female(victim) bullying would be more subtle.
Likewise I'm wondering if female bullies are often more subtle because the target is female.
You may find some ideas in this article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/business/13hire.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1
One way to get help now, before HRs get the ideas suggested in the article, is to create a support group. If you are a nurse, whether male or female, band together. Seek out advice from nurses' unions:
http://search.yippy.com/search?query=CA+nurses+union&sourceid=Mozilla-search