Workplace Bullies Need To Know They Would Do Better By Being Nice

The weekend furore over Boris Johnson’s decision to clear Priti Patel of breaching the code governing ministers’ conduct despite an inquiry finding that the Home Secretary had “unintentionally” bullied civil servants is a reminder that many workplaces continue to be unpleasant places to be. Although the Prime Minister is reported to have told a weekend Cabinet meeting that he would not accept bullying, the sparing of Ms Patel has spurred much criticism, with one former Cabinet Secretary describing Mr Johnson’s decision as “worrying.”

But, while this episode has dominated front pages in recent days, it is far from the only example of its kind. Indeed, there has been extensive coverage on back — or sports — pages of allegations of bullying and abusive behaviour within British gymnastics. Clearly, even after years of managers of all sorts being trained to move away from traditional management methods to more collaborative and consensual approaches, some find it hard to cast off old habits.

Part of the problem lies in where to draw the line between demanding and driven on the one hand and bullying and abusive on the other. Professional sports — where the pressure for constant success can be toxic for managers and players alike — has produced legions of stories, such as those of former Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson’s alleged “hairdryer treatment” of those who displeased him, that would appear to straddle that divide, depending on your point of view.

Another issue was that the aggressive behaviour can — at least in the short term — appear to produce results. Research recently published by academics at the Kuhne Logistics University in Hamburg, Germany suggests that employees suffering emotional or verbal abuse by a supervisor at work can co-operate more with managers, rather than blowing the whistle on them, as other studies suggest. This is because, say Professors Christian Tröster and Niels Van Quaquebeke, if an employee perceives their overall relationship with their supervisor to be positive, emotional or verbal abuse triggers feelings of guilt. This means that they are likely to be more, not less, co-operative in meeting their manager’s demands.

 Prof Troester said: “Abusive supervision is a major issue for employees and companies and yet it is often difficult to detect in a work situation. We have found that guilt often leads to abused staff rewarding and perpetuating abusive behaviour. And the manager perceiving that they are being an effective leader.”

 Dealing with this requires organizations using more sophisticated methods of managers’ performance than simply employee outputs. Again, this is something that — from all the discussion in learned journals — one would expect to be already the case. Clearly, more organizations need to take a wider view of leadership quality — obtaining insights from peers and subordinates and ensuring that promotion requires more than just meeting financial targets, but also showing respect for those who work with them and demonstrating empathy and some understanding of other people’s needs.

 Prof Van Quaquebeke added: “We do not assume that supervisors set out to abuse their staff. Many are probably oblivious to how they are acting. But without measures beyond a team’s outputs, it is very difficult for them, or their organization, to judge effectively how they are performing as leaders, and the impact on their colleagues.”

Certainly, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that in the longer term treating staff unreasonably can be counter-productive. As long ago as 2006, it was estimated that managers’ abuse of employees affected 13.6% of employees in the U.S. and cost organizations nearly $24 billion a year in absenteeism, healthcare costs and lost productivity.

The good news is that — even people who have grown used to behaving badly towards staff — can change. In his address to Cabinet, Mr Johnson apparently referred to how Winston Churchill, a hero of his, had been encouraged to change his behaviour by his wife, Clementine, after one of his friends had complained of his “rough, sarcastic and overbearing manner.” Urging him to combine his terrific power with urbanity, kindness and if possible Olympian calm, she wrote: “You won’t get the best results by irascibility and rudeness.”

Churchill’s fellow wartime leader, Franklin D. Roosevelt, was also apparently dismissive of colleagues — until brought to order by a strong woman. As related in The Art of Fairness, The Power of Decency in a World Turned Mean, a fascinating new book by David Bodanis, the FDR we think we all know — the champion of the oppressed who steered his country out of the Great Depression with fine words and great works — was not always that way. After being struck down by polio in his late 30s, he spent the early 1920s — thanks to his family’s great wealth — living a life far removed from that of most of his countrymen. Initially largely confined to his mother’s Hudson Valley estate, he then embarked on a somewhat louche life aboard a houseboat in Florida before being encouraged in a different direction by Missy LeHand, a young Irish Catholic woman who had worked in his law office and on his earlier political campaigns. 

Insisting that Roosevelt’s life as an invalid was going to end, as Bodanis puts it, she got him to a spa resort in Georgia, where the mineral waters helped strengthen his stricken legs. Just as important, word that Roosevelt was there led others, similarly afflicted, to seek out the isolated location — and Roosevelt responded by initially helping them use the facilities he had developed for himself and then devoting a significant proportion of his inheritance to buy up the whole estate and use it to help patients with their disabilities. The man who as a young politician had been described as a “patronizing son of a bitch” was changing and developing the appreciation of other people’s problems that served him so well when we returned to politics, first by being elected Governor of New York in 1928 and then — by one of the biggest landslides in the history of the U.S. — President.