Rational Decision Making vs. Bullying based decision making

One of the reasons to reject bullying as a leadership style is because bullying leads to bad decisions.

People often ask me why I talk so much about bullying in the context of humanistic leadership development. The answer is that the anti-dote to bullying leadership styles is humanistic leadership.

Bullies lead through aggression and intimidation. They get people to agree with them by basically threatening them if they don’t. This isn’t true leadership, though it often is mistaken as such. Some people do follow bullies voluntarily, but they are usually trying to gain access to resources denied the victims of the bully. It’s a calculated decision to either align with the bully or become a victim of the bully.

True leadership doesn’t require bullying to gain followers.  True leaders are followed because what they are saying and doing makes sense and people can see how they benefit from it.

The topic of this post is about the difference between rational decision making and bullying based decision making.

Working with and supporting bullying leaders usually leads to segregation and hoarding of resources and this in turn causes harms to the “have nots” because bullying is about power and about marking people as either in (haves) or out (have nots).

Decisions made in a bullying framework aren’t about solving problems. They are about hoarding resources, which has nothing to do with solving problems. Bullying, as a leadership style, is a really bad approach to problem solving.

Lots of people are attracted to bullies. They think – here is a guy who can force a solution. And the bully often can. The problem is that the “solution” rarely solves the problem, it just empowers the bully more.

Rational decision making, on the other hand, is unconcerned with power. It’ s concerned with problem solving and using whatever tools are available to solve those problems.  The reason humanistic leadership is more effective is precisely because it doesn’t divide the “human resources” into in groups and out-groups. Everyone has a seat at the table and all potential solutions are considered and people are mobilized, not to pettily segregate people, but into teams that are working collaboratively to solve our problems.

If you are in a working environment with a bully, understand that while they seem to wield power, they aren’t wielding it for the good of the organization. And that fact alone is reason enough to no longer tolerate their behavior.


Learn how to stop bullying in the workplace - https://humanistlearning.com/retaliation1/

And the 7 principles of Humanistic Management - https://humanistlearning.com/?p=2237

Finally - learn about reality based decision making - https://humanistlearning.com/realitybaseddecisionmaking/

Reasonable Management Action vs. Bullying

What constitutes reasonable management action vs. bullying is a question of ongoing concern for many companies, especially since there is an increased awareness of bullying and legal remedies being sought.

I had this same question come up when I spoke at the FL SHRM conference so it’s something that needs to be clarified. Bullying is harassment and harassment is normally defined as a pattern of behavior that is intended to harass the recipient and serves no legitimate purpose. (FYI - your state law’s definition of harassment may vary – this is a synopsis of Florida State law.)

For it to be bullying or harassment – it has to be a pattern of behavior. In other words, it has to happen more than once.  It has to harass the recipient of the behavior. AND the behavior has to serve no legitimate purpose.

When we apply this to the workplace, the applicable term is reasonable management action. Was the behavior part of normal management responsibilities or was it unnecessary.

Australia passed a Fair Work Act in 2009. It has an anti-bullying component. The first cases are now being tried and in one of the first, the concept of reasonable management action was clarified. (see: http://www.awdr.com.au/first-bullying-decision-defines-reasonable-management-action/)

In the case linked to above, receiving complaints and investigating them is reasonable management action even if the effect of receiving complaints and investigating them harassed the person being investigated. The management’s action in this case served a legitimate purpose.

What you are looking for when investigating and responding to reports of abuse/harassment/bullying is whether the behavior served a legitimate purpose or not. How someone responds to another’s behavior may vary. They may feel harassed even when that was not the intention. To avoid the subjective quagmire of hurt feelings you can simply ask – was this behavior necessary? Or did it serve no legitimate purpose?

If it served no legitimate purpose – it needs to stop. To learn more about this – consider taking one of my workplace bullying programs at Humanist Learning Systems: https://humanistlearning.com/category/bullyingharassment/ 

Are you asking the right questions?

This is a lesson in leadership for Human Resources professionals.

This came across my newsfeed the other day. It’s a post from a woman in one of my mom’s groups on Facebook.  It concerns an exit interview she had with a company she worked for.

“WTF really [company redacted]? They sent me a survey on my employment experience. Oddly there was nowhere to type WHY I left. And hostile work environment wasn't an option. Then they dare to ask if I'd ever come back and if I'd recommend them. I don't know [company redacted] your management bullied me to the point I walked out mid shift...what do you think?”

I teach how to stop bullying using behavioral techniques so, this post cut close to me. This is preventable. Both the bullying this person endured and the abysmal attempt at an exit interview which completely failed to provide any useful information to the company. I mean, why even bother if you aren’t open to learning what’s really going on?

I talk to HR pros all the time and they tell me – oh we don’t have a bullying problem here. Really? How would you know? I mean sure, your company may be the exception. But most places have at least 1 problem person. Sometimes the problems are systemic. But they all have interpersonal issues of some sort. You simply can’t get a lot of people together and not have them clash from time to time.

If you aren’t hearing about these problems, it’s not because your company isn’t experiencing them. It’s because you aren’t being told about them. Most employees don’t report abuse because most abuse is supervisor on employee. Reporting abuse can get you fired.

If you really want to know what’s going on, you have to do a little digging. And you have to be open to what you might find. You also need a plan for how to deal with what you find so that you can fix it.

If you aren’t aware of which of your supervisors is abusive, then you simply aren’t asking the right questions.

FYI – if you want to learn how to get abusive behavior to stop – that I can help you with – check out these courses at Humanist Learning Systems: https://humanistlearning.com/category/bullyingharassment/

Tipping Point in Workplace Bullying

The tide is turning away from tolerating abusive behavior in the workplace.  At least I hope it is.

Abusive behavior, whether it is in the form of a horrid manager or a horrid coworker, causes real harm to the victim in the form of emotional distress. And this harm negatively impacts the company’s ability to function and serve customers.

Abusive management is as damaging as other forms of abusive relationships.  Just as a battered woman may be terrified of doing anything that will upset her abuser, an abused customer service rep is unlikely to go out of their way to help a customer if they think doing so will bring down the wrath of their supervisor on them.

Scared workers are ineffective workers. But the blame doesn’t lie with the victim. It lies with the abuser who is creating an atmosphere of fear.

Workplace bullying is serious business that negatively affects your business. There is a reason why more and more business leaders have finally decided to stop tolerating abusive behavior in their workplace. There is a reason why California just changed their law to require all companies with more than 50 employees teach their employees how to stop abusive behavior in the workplace (see: http://www.prlog.org/12392861-is-your-company-ab-2053-compliant.html)

The government of Australia considers bullying in the workplace so destructive that they estimate it costs their economy between $6 and $36 billion in lost productivity every year so they have taken steps to fight it as a nation.

Bullying in the workplace is no longer something that can be hidden. We live in an age of digital media and social sharing and bullies are now leaving digital trails of their crimes, and yes, stalking and harassing someone is criminal behavior.

All this heightened awareness of the problem is great. But let’s not waste this moment. One of the reasons bullying endures at all levels of society is because it’s hard to stop. It requires specialized skill and knowledge. The good news is that these skills are easy to learn and teach. What needs to happen now is that we start teaching these skills to our employees.

If you haven’t already learned what it is you need to teach – take my free 2 hour course – Creating a Sexual Harassment Training that Actually Works.  And if you are a victim of bullying consider taking – Ending Harassment & Retaliation in the Workplace.