Why bullying?
You are too sensitive. It’s a joke. How many times have you heard these phrases said in jest? Perhaps, as a manager, you’ve even used them on someone else yourself at some point in your career.
Yes, words are harmless, especially without context. But these phrases, innocent as they seem, may also form part of an arsenal of tactics used by abrasive leaders to bully others into submission. Bullying does that sometimes; it makes you question yourself and leads you to believe that maybe you are too sensitive.
But first, let’s get back to why bullying. In other words, what led me to write a book about bullying? One of the questions I’m frequently asked is ‘why bullying?’ – that is, why do I do what I do? The answer to this lies in a story that starts around 2010.
I am driving home after a particularly bad day at the office, and I am racking my brain about what’s happening at work; especially what happened that day. I had never before seen anger on the scale that my manager had displayed; an outburst that had left me completely confused because I wasn’t even sure what exactly I had done to trigger such an avalanche of emotion.
I get home. Although I can’t remember what precisely I type into the computer, Google turns up a phrase to describe the phenomenon I’m experiencing.
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It turns out that this thing has a name: workplace bullying. Bullying? Really? Does this mean that I am being bullied?
Me? It turns out that scholars and practitioners the world over had at the time been studying and researching this workplace phenomenon for over 30 years. The behaviours their research revealed happened to fit my experience perfectly.
My first reaction was, ‘No, it can’t be. Surely I’m not being bullied’, because in my head (and, dare I say, in the minds of many people, especially in South Africa at the time), bullying tended to be associated with weakness, with people who can’t speak up or stand up for themselves, or with children terrorising one another in schoolyards. I am many things, but weak is not a word that is usually associated with my character.
This revelation triggered my curiosity; I wanted to delve deeper so that I could understand more about this workplace phenomenon which, at the time, was not heard of or spoken about in corporate South Africa.
So, the short answer to the question around my interest in bullying is that I was bullied.
Little did I know that the bullying, as painful as it was, would turn out to be a conduit to my purposeful work some 10 years later. The experience was the beginning of a journey towards defining my work purpose, namely, rehumanising the workplace, one leader at a time.
Why one leader at a time? Because any change at work must start with leaders. Everything that happens in an organisation happens because of the leader.
I truly believe that if organisations are to succeed in creating bully-free, positive work environments and cultures, leaders, as the employers, must take action, leading the way in creating those desired positive work environments.
This period of my life – and I call it a period, because the bullying was not a single, once-off incident, but rather a series of increasingly unpleasant and harmful interactions – started when I began work at a new organisation.
I had been going through a rough time before I landed the job. I had been an independent management consultant for many years and I hadn’t thought that I would ever make a return to corporate life.
That said, I’m a pragmatist, and when it became clear that life as an entrepreneur wasn’t working as I’d hoped, it made sense to get a job to keep the ‘home fires burning’.
I have always taken pride in my work: I like to prepare for each task so that I can perform it to the very best of my ability. That’s one of the reasons I felt enormously surprised when, far from impressing my supervisor, my performance seemed to annoy and upset her.
Looking back, I can see that the poor chemistry between us was already in place when I interviewed for the job. I’ll admit it sounds trivial, but the first run-in we had was over clothing. Because I love bright colours, I had worn an orange and lime green outfit to the interview.
The colours were certainly eye-catching, but I didn’t expect her to comment on it as she did. My colours soon became the centre of our conversation; in fact, looking back, my then-to-be manager paid more attention to the colours I was wearing that day than to what I said.
I brushed away my misgivings, telling myself that perhaps it was only natural that my vibrant colours had come as something of a shock. I was, after all, interviewing for a key position in a conservative organisation, and I thought it possible that my boss’ comments were something of a test to see whether I could take pressure.
However, even then, I knew that it was not what my manager had said that struck a nerve; rather, it was her tone of voice and facial expression as she said it.
Even after I’d started working for the organisation, it took a while for me to realise what was going on, because the manager’s manner of attack was so subtle, most times.
She was a master of organisational politics; hardly surprising, since she had been a member of the organisation for more than ten years and had become well-known and well-connected during that time.
These feelings of discomfort were all the more difficult for me to understand because in public – at meetings or when other people were with us – the manager was the very model of support, the best line manager one could wish for.
After a while, though, I noticed a pattern in the manager’s behaviour that made me realise this went beyond my imagination. What I remember most about this time is not what she did or said, but how she made me feel.
Nor did she necessarily have to say anything to make me feel this way: often, all it took was a particular facial expression or body language. For example, I would ask a question, and she would look at me as if I was being ludicrous.
Even when she was giving positive feedback, her body language seemed to contradict what she was saying. I felt entirely diminished by her.
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While writing this book, I went through all my journal entries from that time.
What stands out most is the power play that was expressed in our relationship. My manager occupied a very powerful position, and she took great pains to emphasise the distinction between her position and my own.
During our meetings, she would choose to sit behind her large desk rather than taking a seat around the meeting table, as if purposely putting distance between us.
The message was clear: ‘I am here; you are there. We are separate.’ Her reaction to me left me feeling deeply puzzled. I pride myself on being a conscientious worker. Other people in my team noticed the quality of my work and, yet, no matter what I delivered my manager seemed always to find fault with me or my work.
She seemed to take pleasure at pointing out ‘holes’ in my work, especially when I presented to the management committee.
Eventually, I worked up the courage to ask her what more she wanted from me; why she had a problem with me. I pointed out that I had delivered on all my targets, and had received positive feedback from many other colleagues, including people outside of our team.
I was even happy to let her take the credit for what I had done; it mattered more to me that we delivered on our objectives than being recognised as the person who had made it happen.
I didn’t receive a definite answer to my question – but, as time progressed, I came to learn that I was not the only person who had become disheartened because of her.
It transpired that no fewer than three highly qualified, highly accomplished, talented people had left the organisation during the past three years – all of whom had reported to this same individual.
All of them had been committed to doing good work, but their resolve fell apart in the face of her treatment of them.
That was strangely comforting, in a way: it made me realise that none of this was my imagination, and that my manager was the common denominator.
Therefore, this had nothing to do with me.
This is an edited extract from Building Psychologically Safe Spaces: Safeguarding your workplace against bullying by Ngao Motsei. Published by Tracey McDonald Publishers. Available online and in all good bookstores. The recommended retail price is R280.
