Are You Leading or Bullying?

“I feel like you’re intimidating and bullying me.” These are the words of a female employee during a meeting with her male supervisor, who intended to set expectations with her. The supervisor was taken aback and started to question his behavior.

With stories of bullying of children frequently in the news, it makes us stop and think. So, how do you know whether you are leading or bullying?

Keep in mind that a few employees will attempt to deflect attention away from themselves, especially when a work issue is being addressed. One thing they may say, whether they really believe it or not, is that you are bullying” them. It’s as though some believe that no one – not even their supervisor – has a right to set or clarify expectations for them at work.

Also, some employees may use the word “intimidation” when describing what it felt like when they were called into the boss’s office to discuss a performance issue. Well, sure, it can be intimidating, especially for those who know deep down they’ve failed in their work commitment. But that doesn’t mean the boss was purposefully intimidating and is a bully. But it does get at the fact that the use and misuse of power and authority is at the heart of bullying when the boss is involved.

Distinguishing Bullying Behavior

According to the Workplace Bullying Institute, bullying is a “laser-focused”, “systematic campaign of interpersonal destruction” that has nothing to do with work itself and that negatively impacts the employee’s health, career and job. A bullying campaign targets an employee for no good work reason. Such a campaign can cause the employee, who otherwise does acceptable work, to feel hopeless about the situation. Those targeted by bullying tend to be good workers, who are “independent” and not easily “subservient”. G. Namie, The Challenge of Workplace Bullying, Employment Relations Today, 2007, 34(2), pp.43-51.

To help clarify, these are examples of when your behavior could be that of a “bully” instead of that of a “leader/supervisor”:

Bully	Leader/Supervisor
During a performance review, the supervisor is intentionally biased or gives inaccurate feedback because he doesn’t like the employee even though the employee is a good performer.	During a performance review, the supervisor shares honest, substantiated feedback with the employee, whether or not he likes the employee as a person.
The supervisor deliberately excludes an employee from workplace meetings and activities for no good reason or for a concocted reason while other employees on the same team or in the same job classification attend.	The supervisor includes an employee in workplace meetings and activities that other employees on the same team or in the same job classification attend, even if the employee is not the best performer.
The supervisor instigates, encourages, or fails to stop others from spreading malicious gossip, jokes or rumors about an employee.	The supervisor refrains from joking about, gossiping or spreading rumors about any employees and addresses such passive aggressive behavior with other employees. Instead, the supervisor addresses any problematic conduct or performance with an employee directly and privately, giving them an opportunity to give their version of the situation.
The supervisor pesters, spies, or stalks the employee with no business reason for doing so.	The supervisor monitors all employees’ whereabouts and productivity if there is a business reason for doing so, and documents and addresses any issues of attendance or productivity privately with an employee, giving them an opportunity to give their version of the situation.
The supervisor criticizes or belittles the employee persistently or allows others to do so without saying anything.	The supervisor speaks privately with the employee if there are documented conduct or performance issues, getting the employee’s explanation during the conversation.
The supervisor metes out undeserved or unwarranted punishment to an employee.	The supervisor addresses only work related issues, gathering all relevant information regarding a situation, including the employee’s version of events, before deciding whether or not to discipline an employee for workplace misconduct.
The supervisor consistently gives a good performer assignments that are beneath his position to create a feeling of uselessness.	The supervisor holds all employees accountable to job performance standards and documents/addresses sub-standard performance with interventions such as re-training, job shadowing, etc.

The manner in which the supervisor interacts with an employee in any situation can increase or decrease the employee’s perception of being bullied, even if the supervisor’s behavior is not out of line. So, as a leader and supervisor, know when it’s appropriate to address a workplace situation with employees and do it professionally and respectfully.

backbend, bend over backwards, take advantage of

Does Your Back Ache From Bending Over Backwards for Your Employees?

Being the boss is tough. With all the information available on how to motivate and engage employees, without being a micro-manager or a bully, it can be a bit confusing trying to determine what exactly an effective boss is like today. A big part of becoming a good boss is understanding and creating healthy boundaries.

What is a boundary? A boundary is an imaginary line that exists between you and your employees. It marks the difference between your organizational role, authority, responsibility and status, etc. and theirs. And by virtue of this, it defines acceptable behaviors in a given situation, and it gives you permission to tell others what to do and what to expect of them as they do it.

How do you know if you have unhealthy boundaries with employees? If your boundaries at work are non-existent or too loose, you’re probably the type who is very concerned about whether your employees like you. That is, your primary desire, motivation, and basis for your decision-making centers on making your employees like you. And because you want them to like you, you believe if you take care of them and even protect them, they will like you more and work that much harder. After all, it’s all about relationships, right?

Yes, it is about relationships – healthy ones – with good boundaries. Boundaries that recognize and communicate that you are not your employees’ equal at work and that it’s your job to tell them what to do and to provide them information about why they need to do it and how well they did it. If you are overly concerned with being liked, you’re focusing on you and not on the company’s goals and interests (which is the job of management). (This is called co-dependence or “letting the tail wag the dog”.) In short, you are not fulfilling your role as boss and are bending over backwards too far.

If you find yourself walking on eggshells around employees in the pursuit of their happiness and at the expense of the company’s and other employees’ interests . . . . If you balk at requiring/asking your employees to do the not so fun parts of their jobs . . . . If you are avoiding a conversation about performance or conduct issues because you’re afraid you might upset an employee. . . . here are 4 things you can do to create healthier boss/employee boundaries:

First, consciously step into your role as boss with no apologies. This means, you are the “decider”. It’s your job to set expectations and sometimes to have difficult conversations: that’s what you’re paid to do. You don’t need to be a jerk about it. Just be as clear as possible. Your employees already expect this by virtue of your role as the boss. The authority and permission to tell others what to do is built into the boss/employee relationship. (Repeat: you don’t need to be a jerk about it.) They’re waiting for it because even they know when they are pushing boundaries. They are probably surprised you haven’t already addressed certain issues with them.

Second, strive to be respected instead of liked. You might be able to do both, but garnering respect first and foremost forms the basis of a healthy boss/employee relationship. To gain respect, you must be firm, fair, and consistent, so your employees know what to expect of you on a regular basis. And yes, your employees won’t like everything you hold them accountable to, but they’ll understand it and expect it.

Third, don’t actively seek to be friends with your employees. They might be great people, but to maintain a healthy boss/employee boundary, you shouldn’t see each other tipsy at happy hour or know minute details of your current or past relationships. Concentrate on the work with occasional superficial chit chat.

Fourth, get better at handling conflict and hard conversations. Being the boss means you will deal with situations where most people don’t want to change the way they do things. Conflict abounds. When you shy away from conflict, you’re trading the possibility of something new and full of potential, for staying stuck in the present situation that you may think is safe but which reflects your inability to adapt and your lack of faith in others to do the same.

To better cope with the discomfort of being the boss, find peers – other managers, business owners, CEOs – to commiserate and celebrate with. It can be lonely being in charge, and these peers can relate to the trials and tribulations of being a boss and offer advice and support.

Your employees were hired to accomplish work in your company. They don’t mind doing the job – they applied for it. And healthy, defined boundaries will create clarity, making your work together easier and more productive.

Enabling Versus Empowering in the Workplace

Do you have employees who are poor performers or who don’t get along with others and who have been in your company for too long? Why?

There is no reason why you should tolerate employees who continually produce substandard work, exhibit unsatisfactory attendance, or who behave badly as a general rule. Yet, you, like most leaders, have at least a few of these employees. The sad fact is that you have no one to blame but yourself. Even in the public sector, where employees are entitled to “due process” before they are fired or demoted, it is very do-able to address the performance and behavior issues and even discharge someone, if warranted.

The issue is often includes a co-dependent manager, who would rather be liked than hold the employee accountable. Another word for it is “enabling”. Enabling behavior encourages the “bad” employee to continue being bad. It’s the same dynamic between loved ones and an addict, which prevents the addict from addressing her addiction –like allowing drug use in your home or giving the alcoholic money for rent because she used the rent money to buy booze. If you are “walking on eggshells” around an employee in your organization and avoiding a necessary conversation about unmet expectations, chances are, you are part of an enabling dynamic.

When you are an “enabler”, you prevent or interfere with holding the employee accountable to acquire new competencies. It keeps her stuck in her unproductive performance and poor behavior. Enabling keeps the employee believing she has no power or control over her life , her work, and her self-efficacy. You become complicit in reinforcing unproductive behavior such as procrastination or passivity by not expecting more. In short, if you are a co-dependent manager, you are silently communicating that the “bad” employee is not capable of changing and is not capable of taking responsibility for her performance or her actions.

Here are some examples:

Looking the other way when the employee mistreats a customer or co-worker.
Talking yourself out of addressing an issue as you pretend “it isn’t that bad”.
Giving the employee adequate performance reviews, so you don’t have to justify your observations of inadequate performance.

By avoiding the issue, you are effectively ignoring your duty to the organization and to the rest of the employees who are meeting company expectations.

If you are enabling an employee, you might fear the reaction from an under-performer if you address the work issues. Like the addict or alcoholic, the enabled employee will most likely have an emotional outburst that deflects the attention away from herself as she points the finger at others, including you. Not a comfortable place to be. In short, it’s just easier to tolerate the substandard employee and hope it doesn’t get any worse than it already is.

The healthier way of dealing with the substandard employee is to expect more of her by empowering her. But this takes guts, an acknowledgment that it’s your job as a manager to do this, and a belief that it is better to respected than to be liked.

Empowering is behavior that expects the employee to acquire new competencies for better performance. It increases the employee’s sense of control or power over a situation, and encourages the learning of new coping abilities to replace the unwanted behavior or performance.

What does empowering look like? Good old-fashioned management:

Talk to the employee about what you are experiencing, giving her a chance to explain;
Restate your expectation for what acceptable work product or behavior looks like;
Offer or require training if appropriate for the issue at hand;
If applicable to the situation, ask the employee for options for how she can do things differently to achieve the results you expect;
Follow up and follow through with the employee to make sure the necessary changes are taking place;
If the necessary changes do not occur, start summarizing your conversations about performance or behavior with the employee in writing, and escalate the formality of the written summaries from a warning to reprimands to a letter of suspension or termination as warranted and according to your company policy.

As with many things, if you want an employee to change, you might have to change first.

Delivering Performance Feedback without Performance Evaluation Forms

I often rail against the typical, formulaic performance evaluation. So, if typical performance evaluation forms aren’t effective for communicating a manager’s desired performance from employees, then what is?

Simple . . . a little something I like to call, “communication”. (Assuming you did a decent job of hiring a qualified, sane person for the job in the first place.)

I’m a big proponent of the adage a la Oprah that when “people know better, they do better”. And for employees to know what “better” looks like, managers have to talk to them. In turn, for managers to talk to employees, managers can’t be conflict avoidant. So here are some tips for giving performance feedback to your employees:

Focus on an employee’s strengths.

If possible, assign employees to work on tasks and projects that will utilize their strengths. They still must be able to perform the essential job functions, but when there’s a choice steer them to what they do best.

Communicate clear expectations to employees.

One of the biggest misconceptions managers have is that the employee SHOULD know what to do and how to do it. Or that the employee interpreted the boss’s directions exactly how the boss intended them. Wrong. That’s why we have managers to make sure everyone’s on the same page.

Talk to employees about their work daily, weekly, and monthly.

It’s a manager’s job to talk to employees about their work, whether things are going well or whether there are problems. To do this, meet with employees at the outset of a new project to clarify your expectations and to get their input; check in with the employee regularly on an on-going basis to see if changes are required; and after the work has been done debrief with the employee to help reflect on what went right, what didn’t turn out so well, and what might be done in the future to achieve the best possible outcome.

Put your observations about an employee’s work in writing.

Whether an employee excels at the work or whether the employee’s work is shoddy, have a conversation with the employee about their work and put your observations in writing (give a copy to the employee). Letters of commendation, letters of warning, and letters of reprimand should also be placed in the employee’s personnel file.

By following these actions, managers are able to create performance feedback that is more effective, timely, and believable than using the typical pre-fab performance evaluation form.

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