How To Deal With Bullies At Work

People often think of bullying as something that happens mostly to the young, and picture it occurring largely in cafeterias and schoolyards.

They don’t picture it as something that can happen just as easily to adults at their places of work, even though thousands of adults report experiencing workplace bullying every year.

But if you find yourself victim to workplace bullying yourself, have no fear. We will go over what workplace bullying is, how to deal with it, and what not to do when being bullied at work.

Key Takeaways:

• The types of workplace bullies are:

  • The classic

  • The backstabber

  • The gatekeeper

  • The critic

  • The expert

• When dealing with a workplace bully it’s important to talk to your coworkers about the bully and their behavior.

• Document all instances of bullying and report it to your manager and HR department.

• Don’t assume the bullying is going to go away on it’s on and it’s important to do something about it.

What is Workplace Bullying?

Workplace bullying usually doesn’t take the same form as your high school days. It’s not typically obvious name-calling and hurtful statements. Adult bullies have learned that that sort of overt behavior is frowned upon in today’s world, and so have adapted to more subtle forms of harassment.

Here are some common types of workplace bullies:

1. The classic. Okay, so the adult form of the classic, loud, obnoxious, and even abusive bully still exists. They like to instill fear in others and humiliate their coworkers to cover up their own insecurities.

2. The backstabber. This is the guy who seems quite friendly, but either steals your ideas without crediting you or disparages your work and input behind your back. This person is quietly ruining your reputation.

3. The gatekeeper. This is the kind of bureaucratic troll who gets off on being in charge of resources. Many people have to go through this person just to get their own jobs done, and the gatekeeper plays favorites, giving him an outsize role in your workplace productivity and efficiency.

4. The critic. Constructive criticism is not bullying, but when someone constantly goes out of their way to put down not only your ideas, but the value of your input as a whole, it’s no longer constructive.

5. The expert. This is a high-performing employee who is genuinely an expert. The problem is, this person talks down to everyone and assumes that they’re stupid. If her ideas don’t work out, she blames the minions who carried out her orders instead of taking responsibility for a bad plan.

How to Deal With Bullies at Work

As we mentioned, it’s difficult to know what to do in the face of a bully, especially in the moment. That’s why it’s useful if you can come up with a plan before the bullying happens for how you’re going to deal with the situation.

Planning your actions out ahead of time can make it easier to stick to your guns when the situation arises, which might just make all the difference to you when it comes time to finally kick your bully to the curb.

If you find you’re being bullied at work, here are a few big things you should try:

• Talk to your coworkers about the bully and their behavior. Odds are good that if you’re feeling victimized, that either someone else you’ve worked with has also felt victimized or else someone you’ve worked with has noticed what’s been going on.

  In the moment, people often accidentally take the side of the bully, but outside of the situation, people naturally side with victims, so talking like this can make it easier for you to get support for your later documentation of the bully’s behavior.

• Set limits for what you’re willing to endure from your bully. This will make it easier for you to stand up for yourself if you remind yourself ahead of time that, say, maybe you’re willing to let them make fun of you, but you’re not willing to let them enter your personal space and make you feel uncomfortable.

• Report the behavior. As soon as you have the proper evidence, you need to tell your human resources department as well as your own management about any instances of bullying. These systems are ostensibly in place to help you, so your company should have some way of dealing with situations like this as they arise.

  Unfortunately, people are flawed and don’t always carry out company policy in ways that genuinely deal with bullies. If you find your company trying to sweep a case of bullying under the rug, consider quitting your job and/or finding yourself a lawyer.

• Take care of yourself outside of the workplace. Bullying can take a lot out of you in the workplace and outside of it. It’s important to balance the negative influences and replace them with positive ones. Try joining a club or organization that does something you enjoy to help get your mind off of things.

  You can also try talking to a therapist or a trusted friend about what is going on. They will help you give an outsider perspective on things and give advice on how to fix things.

• Look for a new job. If after you talk to your coworker and report the issue things don’t change, try looking for a new job. No job is worth being bullied everyday. Finding a new job can be easy but repairing your mental health won’t be so easy.

How Does Bullying Still Happen in the Workplace?

• Generally speaking, bullying occurs because one person feels the need to increase their standing by making themselves look better than another person, which they believe they can accomplish by putting down someone else.

• In this sense, bullying comes from a place of deep insecurity — no one who is genuinely confident in their own abilities would be self-conscious enough about someone else’s success that they would feel the need to sabotage them in some way.

  That’s why it should come as little surprise that some of the most frequent targets of bullying are veteran employees or workers who are otherwise the best at what they do.

• You see, while bullying in the adult world functions similarly to how it does in the world of children, targets are chosen very differently. Rather than looking for the weakest or least popular group members to keep down, workplace bullies tend to target those that they perceive to be a threat.

• There isn’t a lot a person can do to avoid being targeted in this way because the threat is a perceived one. That is, it may only exist within the bully’s mind.

What Not to Do When You’re Being Bullied at Work

Even attentive managers and HR workers can have a tough time spotting and dealing with bullying problems in the workplace because bullying can be hard to identify. What’s more, most people aren’t naturally equipped to deal with workplace bullies, so when they’re faced with the problem, they might find themselves making a few mistakes that can give bullies an unnecessary advantage.

If you are making these mistakes, don’t feel bad — they’re easy ones to make. But if you can recognize that you’re making them and take steps to correct them, you might find the bullying can get a little bit better or even disappear entirely.

Here are some things you should avoid doing at all costs if you find that you’re being bullied at work:

• Don’t assume that the bullying is just going to stop on its own. It can be appealing to try and just stay quiet and hope that your bully will give up and leave you alone, but generally speaking, this will just make a bully extra determined to find some way to get to you.

• Don’t forget to keep track of everything that’s happening to you. Assuming that the bullying doesn’t stop, you’re going to at some point need to report individual instances of bullying to serve as evidence against the bully.

  So write down recollections of individual instances, save all harassing emails, and if you can, try to document a particular instance of bullying on a cellphone camera or sound recording. It’ll go a long way toward proving to someone else that you’re in trouble from an abuser.

• Don’t let yourself become isolated. It can be easy to be intimidated into silence, letting the bully sabotage your relationships with other employees. Getting you on your own is precisely the kind of situation that gives your bully power, so if you find that this sort of thing is happening to you, it might be high time you finally ask for help regarding the bullying.

Final Thoughts

That’s all for this one! Just keep in mind: No matter what the reason is that you’re being bullied or what methods your bully (or bullies) is using to do so, you should always keep in mind that bullying is never the fault of the victim.

Even if you find that you’re making many of the mistakes listed in the second section of this article, don’t feel bad about having made them. In general, people aren’t naturally equipped to deal with workplace bullying — it’s the kind of thing that really sneaks up on you.

That’s because, for the most part, we just don’t expect it to happen. There are rules in our society, unspoken or not, and it can often feel like the place that those rules are the most observed are in work situations.

And always remember that if you find yourself in a situation where you’re being bullied, there should be someone higher up who can help you — and if not, there’s always the nuclear options of leaving your job or seeking legal help.

Author

Ryan Morris

Ryan Morris was a writer for the Zippia Advice blog who tried to make the job process a little more entertaining for all those involved. He obtained his BA and Masters from Appalachian State University.