Having been bullied at work, I discovered the suggestion of moving on is not that easy. After investing several years building up salary, skills, benefits and seniority moving into a “new” job has great professional and personal sacrifice.
Through my journey I found general opinion is the person being bullied should leave their job. I believe the opposite to be true.
The target should be encouraged to stay by business leaders. It’s the bully’s activities that affect business cost.
The company where my experience occurred had an anti-harassment policy; however the Senior Executive where the bullies. As a result, mid-level management remained silent, and some joined in believing it to be a valid part of the workplace culture.
My support system advised me to turn the other cheek and just leave.
I wanted to speak up and discuss the matter with the owner; who was the only senior person above the bullies.
Instead I took the advice to “move on”. When others got fed up – they quit.
So not only did I suffer, but so did the company. They lost the time they invested on public relations, their business’ reputation and valuable human resources nurtured over many years. These disgruntled employees moved out to competitors with horror stories of their former work place.
I was a dedicated and hardworking employee who found it disheartening to realize there would be no improvement to the corporate culture. I stayed as long as I did because I thought a senior executive would stop the abuse.
I realize now that instead of leaving, I should have spoken to the owner. Since then I have dedicated myself to working with businesses to resolve interpersonal relationship issues.
I now coach that listening to defeatist advice does not elevate anyone’s character or aid in achieving business goals.
Article written by:
Tamara Parris, Business Genie. Please twitter @business_genie or call 416-548-4237
Visit our website http://www.businessaccountability.com
Thanks for contributing this great article Tamara. 🙂
Look forward to reading more.
I had a Michigan male charter school grade school principal try to bully me but he was never able to control me. No control no action! He sent me e-mails telling me ":We need to chat" and "Teachers are complaining about you". All nonsense!! He got rid of me because I was a threat to him and he could never control me. I lost my benefits, etc but I do workshops in our community on bullying and I spare no names. I tell it all!
I am actually quite grateful for the bullying situation I experienced in my previous pharmaceutical sales career. Had it not been for that…I would not have become so frustrated with this (previously amazing position) and left to fulfill my lifelong dream of becoming a life coach! When life hands you lemons…make lemonade! Not original…but true!
I was bullied at my previous job. It was extremely disheartening and truly affected my self esteem. Its taken me a long time to recover both my sense of self and worth as well as my feeling of equity in the world. Even more disheartening, although obviously for the best, I was 'let go due to needs of the business', while the bully continues to work at the company. Unfortunately, many organizations allow this type of behaviour because those bullies know how to work the politics, and just like any bully, know how to behave when the 'grown ups' are watching.