October 22
Why bullying happens at work?
- There are many reasons why and this list is not nearly a complete one. In our experience bullying could happen in any one of these circumstances:
- Know your boundaries and set clear boundaries at work. This is the only way to know when others are overstepping the mark. Then tell those co-workers or manager that you will not put up with this kind of behaviour. A wonderful book that could help you in this regard is
- Chapter eleven is all about boundaries at work. Maybe the whole workplace could benefit with a little bit of training on what is acceptable and what is not.
- Cultural differences. There are different characteristics between what Sana Reynolds and Deborah Valentine describe in their book ”Guide to Cross-Cultural Communication” Individualist and Collective cultures.
Tip: Ask your office to add this book to their library. Every person who is managing another person could benefit from reading this book. The benefit to you is that your manager could better understand you and learn how to manage you to get the best possible effort from you. Your office culture might be such that it is condoning bullying. We still hear the slogan that “business is a man’s world”. When the culture of a nation is domestic violence there could be more acceptance of bullying in the workplace. The person with the bullying behaviour might have experienced this negative behaviour growing up. It is just be that this person doing the bullying now has the power and simply don’t know how to be a good manager. The possibilities are endless and so are the solutions.