This is the second article in a three part series on workplace bullying. You can read the first article here.
What workplaces are more prone to bullying?
We are moving away from the notion that bullying is just bad people behaving at their worst and once we get rid of them the bad behaviours stop. We’re also moving away from the target of the bullying “bringing it on themselves”. This has been extensively studied and work factors are far more significant in predicting bullying than characteristics of individuals (Trepanier et. al., 2016).
Sometimes it is the individual that is the primary cause of the negative behaviours and removing the individual works. However many organisations find that because behaviours are influenced by the culture and environment, removing the badly behaved individual doesn’t cause the bad behaviours to cease. A large amount of research has been completed on identifying the type of work environment that promotes bullying and negative behaviours.
Stress in the workplace promotes negative behaviours
Stress in the workplace is one of the major factors to predict bullying (Zahlquist et. al., 2019). There is a distinction between ‘challenging stress’, which is the healthy, temporary type of stress that helps us meet a deadline or focuses us before presenting at an important meeting. Then there is ‘hindering stress’ which is the type of stress that exists permanently in the workplace and hinders decision making, strains relationships and damages health.
The reason workplace stress turns out to be a predictor of bullying is because of the drain this type of environment has on our mental capacity. This causes a depletion in self-control on the side of the perpetrator which leads to poor behaviour (Dhanini et. al., 2019). In the case of the victim the stressful environment reduces their capacity to manage and confront conflict, which leads to situations escalating (Zahlquist et. al., 2019).
It’s difficult sometimes to work out what comes first, the bullying or the stress, because bullying causes stress and vice versa. Work related bullying which includes practices such as (Doran, 2020):
Manipulating or withholding information required to do a job
Creating unrealistic or unreasonable task deadlines
Constant monitoring of work (e.g. micromanaging)
Creating an overwhelming workload.
All of these create stress and can constitute bullying behaviours.
Like many many of the conditions that buffer a workplace from bullying their absence creates conditions where bullying can thrive (Dhanini, 2019). One buffer against bullying is supervisor and colleague support (Butterworth, 2016). For example when an employee is encountering conflict that can potentially escalate to bullying, if they have a colleague or supervisor they can discuss the matter confidentially with, they have a source to help deal with the situation. This support can sometimes provide the target of bullying with the courage and self assurance to address the situation. A stressful workplace often means employees and supervisors don’t have time or the emotional capacity to adequately support colleagues.
Role ambiguity and role conflict
Pep Guardiola, the highly successful football manager of Manchester City Football Club, is well known for his intense and repetitive training sessions. One of the reasons for the repetition and intensity is to remove randomness out of match day. From sport to the workplace, randomness and chaos are part of our day but we also perform better the more we can remove ambiguity and uncertainty.
Role ambiguity can occur when an employee (CahayaSanthi et. al., 2020):
does not have clarity, authority or information about how to complete the work that has been assigned to them.
lacks a clear direction or performance expectations for their role or task
is unsure about their job responsibilities
is unclear who is responsible for different issues and tasks.
Bullying thrives in an environment of ambiguity. Where employees perceive there to be contradictory expectations, demands and values your chances of encountering bullying are increased (Salin & Hoel, 2020).
A recently published Swedish study across government and private organisations concluded that role ambiguity “predicted exposure to bullying behaviours 41–45 months later “ (Blomberg et. al, 2024). Again showing bullying is something that builds over time and we always have the opportunity to address potential problem situations before they escalate to bullying. The bullying was also reduced by work environments that were supportive and trust worthy. You can survive these challenges of ambiguity if you have a supportive workplace.
Role conflict is the close cousin of role ambiguity and multiple studies (Zahlquist, 2019) have found that role conflict is the best predictor of bullying behaviour.
Role conflict is defined as (Zahlquist, 2019):
“the simultaneous existence of two or more sets of expectations toward the same person, such that compliance with one set of expectations makes compliance with the other set difficult.”
In other words role conflict is the situation where we have two competing demands and completing one means the other doesn’t get done. Often we can discuss the dilemma with our direct manager “What’s the priority here?” and get a quick solution. Sometimes the competing interests come from different sources and both sources think their work is the most important. Sometimes it’s between the workplace and the client. Either way these conflicts lead to stress and conflict, and can be a precursor to bullying because the stress that role conflict creates leads to frustration in employees and consequently negative behaviours (Zahlquist et. al., 2019).
High job demands or boring work
Sometimes it’s the work that creates a depletion in our mental capacity, not necessarily the behaviour of others. The type of work that requires us to (Zahlquist et. al., 2019):
complete a high volume of work at high speed
remember many things,
concentrate on several things at one time
be particularly careful about our work,
are all things that make a workplace stressful and at risk to bullying behaviours. At the other end of the work spectrum is staff having to continually complete monotonous and repetitive tasks also leaves a workplace at the risk of bullying (Feijo et. al., 2019).
High job demands also mean that we don’t have time to form relationships with colleagues. The courteous, friendly conversations that help form strong workplace relationships don’t happen as much in demanding environments. These relationships are often the thing that help prevent disagreements escalating to the point of conflict and then bullying (Zahlquist et. al., 2019).
Change and bullying
If your mantra is “change is the new normal” you might want to add “bullying is the new normal” as well. One Norwegian study (Skogstad et, al., 2007) of 2400 workers and another on the Australian Public Service, using a sample size of 80,000, (Kleizen et. al., 2023) both found that organisational change predicted an increase in workplace bullying.
Part of the reason for this is that organisational change can cause an increase in negative emotions (Skogstad et. al., 2007), such as:
Feelings of disbelief
Uncertainty
Threat
Denial
Distrust and anger
Powerlessness
Threat to self esteem.
This rise in negative emotions leads to negative behaviours if the change is not managed well. The frustrations felt by some individuals leads to the lashing out at others and the targets of bullying are so emotionally depleted they can’t stand up to the bully.
The bullying during change is more likely to be related to conflicts over a task (Skogstad et. al., 2007) and such factors as:
Who does what?
Changes to work team composition
Changes in management and leadership
Introduction of new technology
are all recognised sources of task conflict.
These factors get to the core of what people mostly dislike about workplace change and are more likely to be part of bullying because they tend to go undetected and the bully knows this. Redistributing tasks and moving people in and out of teams can be hidden under the guise of ‘business’, but clearly the victims don’t buy this.
The other thing a major change does, particularly if it includes cutbacks in staff and budget, is create competition between staff and teams. The lack of resources creates over working to begin with, which increases stress, but the competition creates negative behaviours as staff try to look after themselves or their work teams (Salin and Hoel, 2020).
So what do we do? Do we avoid the need to change and hence improve our practices because it will generate higher incidences of bullying? The previously mentioned study into the Australian Public Service found that when the change was managed well and staff were satisfied with the management of the change, the negative effects of the change dropped significantly (Kleizen et. al., 2023). The study didn’t test what aspects of change management the staff were satisfied with but previous research suggests that to manage change effectively from a people related standpoint we need to:
Provide frequent and high quality communication
Increase participation in the change process
Support staff in maintaining their wellbeing
Ensure procedures and decision making are fair and just.
All these practices have the effect of reducing anxiety and stress and increasing the acceptance of the change (Kleizen et. al., 2023).
The effect of leadership style on bullying
The style of leadership also has an influence on the level of bullying in an organisation. Leadership at the extremes of the spectrum are the worst for encouraging bullying. At one end of the spectrum there is autocratic or dictatorial leadership and at the other end is laissez faire (e.g. letting things take their own course) leadership. Both of these styles of leadership are related to higher occurrences of bullying (Feijo et. al., 2019).
The autocratic style is a controlling style of leadership and this sets the example to others about how the organisation runs itself, that is by controlling each other. This takes away a sense of autonomy from an individual which is a critical psychological need in work and personal life (Trepanier et. al., 2016).
Autocratic leadership takes away our sense of autonomy which contributes to creating an environment where bullying thrives. One of the earliest studies into bullying (Vartia et. al., 1996) found that both targets and observers of bullying described their work environment as:
having poor information flow
an authoritarian way of settling differences of opinions
a lack of discussion of common goals and tasks
limited influence on their own work situation.
The laissez-faire style of leadership has the same effect but in another way. The lack of intervention by the leader means role clarity and purpose for the team is reduced which is one of the drivers of stress and conflict which can then escalate to bullying behaviours (Feijo et. al., 2019).
So what now?
In the next episode we’ll look at specific interventions that have been tested and what impact they had. In meantime you can create a workplace that moves towards the opposite of the risk factors outlined in this article.
Summary
Bullying is more likely to happen in workplaces where:
Stress is constant to the point where it impacts staff’s ability to do their work. This is different from ‘challenging stress’ which animates us and enhances our ability to meet short term goals
Supervisor and colleague support is limited. This personal support for staff who have been subject to negative behaviours, helps prevent the conflict escalating to bullying
There is a lack of clarity around task, responsibilities and performance measures (i.e. role ambiguity)
There are two sets of expectations on an employee and they conflict with each. It will be difficult to complete both
High job demands exist that create constant high levels of stress
Organisational change is not managed well
Leadership styles are either autocratic at one end of the spectrum or laissez faire at the other end.
References
Blomberg, S., Rosander, M., & Einarsen, S. V. (2024). Role ambiguity as an antecedent to workplace bullying: Hostile work climate and supportive leadership as intermediate factors. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 40(2), 101328.
Butterworth, P., Leach, L. S., & Kiely, K. M. (2016). Why it’s important for it to stop: Examining the mental health correlates of bullying and ill-treatment at work in a cohort study. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 50(11), 1085-1095.
CahayaSanthi, N. P. M., & Piartrini, P. S. (2020). The effect of role ambiguity on work related stress and employees’ work satisfaction. American Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences Research, 4(6), 99-107.
Dhanani, L., Wolcott, A., & Pueschel, A. (2019, July). Is it the person or the place? A meta-analytic test of the antecedents of workplace incivility. In Academy of management proceedings (Vol. 2019, No. 1, p. 12256). Briarcliff Manor, NY 10510: Academy of Management.
Doran, C., Rebar, A., Waters, K., Meredith, P., & Doran, C. (2020). A Review of the Evidence Related to the Impacts of, and Interventions for, Workplace Bullying in the Construction Industry. Mates in.
Feijó, F. R., Gräf, D. D., Pearce, N., & Fassa, A. G. (2019). Risk factors for workplace bullying: a systematic review. International journal of environmental research and public health, 16(11), 1945.
Kleizen, B., Wynen, J., Boon, J., & De Roover, J. (2023). Bullying and harassment as a consequence of workplace change in the Australian civil service: Investigating the mediating role of satisfaction with change management. Review of Public Personnel Administration, 43(1), 56-79.
Salin, D., & Hoel, H. (2020). Organizational risk factors of workplace bullying. In Bullying and Harassment in the Workplace (pp. 305-329). CRC press.
Skogstad, A., Matthiesen, S. B., & Einarsen, S. (2007). Organizational changes: a precursor of bullying at work?. International Journal of Organization Theory & Behavior, 10(1), 58-94.
Trépanier, S. G., Fernet, C., & Austin, S. (2015). A longitudinal investigation of workplace bullying, basic need satisfaction, and employee functioning. Journal of occupational health psychology, 20(1), 105.
Vartia, M. (1996). The sources of bullying–psychological work environment and organizational climate. European journal of work and organizational psychology, 5(2), 203-214.
Vranjes, I., Notelaers, G., & Salin, D. (2022). Putting workplace bullying in context: The role of high-involvement work practices in the relationship between job demands, job resources, and bullying exposure. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 27(1), 136-151. https://doi.org/10.1037/ocp0000315
Zahlquist, L., Hetland, J., Skogstad, A., & Einarsen, S. V. (2019). Job demands as risk factors of exposure to bullying at work: The moderating role of team-level conflict management climate. Frontiers in psychology, 10, 471375.
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