Bully bosses are a problem that affects the employees being bullied as well as the organization. For the employee being bullied, it stifles their potential. They never realize their worth and develop a fear of making mistakes. For the organization, a bullying boss results in lost productivity, low employee satisfaction, high turnover and ultimately lower customer satisfaction.
Further to that, bully bosses tend to surround themselves with people they feel won’t threaten their dominance, power, and control. This causes the team to stop innovating because of a fear of voicing new ideas and thoughts.
8 Signs of a bully boss
- Star performers start to fall – and they fall over nonexistent mistakes and infractions
- Poor performers can do no wrong – and in fact, they seem to excel
- Implementing a chain of command – the manager prohibits employees from talking to anyone above them
- Equality for different groups isn’t a priority – they won’t give the time of day to people in lower level positions
- They make it well known that there are inferior groups within the organization – be it based on education, income or role within the organization
- They believe in an environment of natural winners and losers – this promotes unhealthy competition
- Not giving credit to others for the work they produced – they take other’s work and present it as their own
- Putting people down in front of others – they make their displeasure known and publicly carry out disciplinary action against someone no matter who is around at the time
How to deal with a bully boss
Dealing with a bully boss needs to start with the organization. Creating a culture where supervisors are rewarded based on the development of others rather than undermining or finger pointing is a great start. Incentivizing managers to develop and elevate top talent limits bullying behavior because they are measured based on how well the team improves.
Supervisors who use dominance, power, and control to lead need to be identified then coached up or out quickly. Or better yet, hiring practices need to include ways to uncover bully bosses during an interview. This can prevent them from joining in the first place.
It isn’t always easy for an organization to identify a bully boss. Often it is up to the workforce to come forward and make it known. If you are the victim of a bully boss or a bystander who witnesses it, you have an obligation to bring it forward.
The consequences of allowing a bully boss to stay employed are catastrophic. Bully bosses breed bullying and more bully bosses. Employees report to work late and slow down work. Employees will often not follow bully boss’s directions. Bully bosses create a team of sub-par performers. They will not coach employees up out of fear of them being better than they are. Ultimately turnover will increase.
Last updated on November 10th, 2018 at 07:43 am
