How ‘Brilliant Jerks’ Can Ruin a Workplace

Yesterday I discussed the revelation by a former Uber employee that reporting incidents of sexual harassment to the human resources department was useless. This really hit a nerve with readers, who left many comments about how futile that still is. It’s no surprise that this behavior continues. In his article in the New York Times, Mike Isaac reveals how the “focus on pushing for the best result has also fueled what current and former Uber employees describe as a Hobbesian environment at the company, in which workers are sometimes pitted against one another and where a blind eye is turned to infractions from top performers.” 

In my work for psychologically healthy, safe and fair workplaces I am often challenged by executives who claim my findings and assertions are too extreme and do not reflect the real world. Clearly, they reflect what is going on at Uber, and Uber is not alone. In 2015, Amazon was exposed for their brutal culture. I discuss these sorts of toxic workplace cultures, how to recognize them, and how to change them, in my new book, From Bully to Bull’s-Eye: Move Your Organization Out of the Line of Fire.

Change may be coming at Uber. The exposé by the brave former employee captured the attention of CEO Travis Kalanick, top management and the board. Perhaps with solid leadership a healthier culture could be implemented. I applaud board member Ariana Huffington's vow that company will no longer hire “brilliant jerks.”

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Why Reporting Sexual Harassment to HR is Ineffective

Stop me if you heard this one—a female employee gets sexually harassed by her supervisor and reports it to Human Resources. HR tells her that she can transfer to another department to get away from him, but because it’s his first offense and he’s a star performer, there’s little they can do. The employee transfers and learns from other female employees that the former supervisor has harassed many of them. They go back to HR, which does nothing. The latest example of this happened at Uber, according to the New York Times, which picked up the story from the employee’s own blog.

This sort of ineffectiveness is all too frequent from HR departments. They often seem more interested in protecting the bullies than dealing with abuse. In fact, when I talk with employees at speaking events around the country, the most common response to the question “Did HR help you?” is that the department is in management’s pocket and the visit was a waste of time.

We’ve seen this play out over and over again—Fox News, Roger Ailes, Bill O’Reilly, and so on. This is why I devoted a chapter in my book From Bully to Bull’s-Eye: Move Your Organization Out of the Line of Fire to sexual bullying. Until we recognize the right of every employee to enjoy a psychologically healthy, safe and fair workplace and make that a priority for Human Resources, sexual harassment will continue to harm victims as well as the company.

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How a Bully Boss Turns Subordinates into Bullies: White House Edition

There is a classic workplace bullying dynamic at work in the White House. As Donald Trump bullies his subordinates, they become bullied bullies and bully others. Trump communications specialist Omarosa Manigault was guilty of this recently when she tried to intimidate veteran White House reporter April Ryan, according to a report in the Washington Post. Just steps from the Oval Office, Manigault physically intimidated Ryan, made verbal threats and asserted that Ryan was among reporters on whom the Trump administration had “dossiers” of information. According to Ryan, the physical behavior was so extreme that it almost warranted Secret Service intervention.

In my new book, From Bully to Bull’s-Eye: Move Your Organization Out of the Line of Fire, I deal extensively with how people who are bullied become bullies themselves. For many it is a way to cope and survive in a toxic environment, for others it gives them a license to get results through fear.

I keep pointing out the work of Stanley Milgram in The Perils of Obedience where he observed: "...ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority." My book is a resource so employees don’t become "agents in a terrible destructive process by resisting authority."

Bully Boss Held Accountable in Employee’s Suicide

There’s no question about it—bullying kills—and we finally have a case where there might be justice. The jury during a coroner’s inquest in Fayette, Ohio, found that the suicide of a 17-year-old high school student was due to involuntary manslaughter principally caused by the bullying of his manager at Dairy Queen. While this is not a conviction, the manager has been arrested and the case now goes to the judge to determine whether full charges will be filed. As I’ve long advocated, people who bully must be held accountable.

This is a deeply important issue, which is why I dedicated an entire chapter of my book, From Bully to Bull’s-Eye, to “Costs, Liabilities and Deadly Consequences” of bullying.  According to a Harvard study, more than 120,000 deaths per year may be attributable to workplace stress. The damage done by bullies to their victims can lead to depression, anxiety, post traumatic stress disorder and suicide. Suicide, which is too often euphemistically called “sudden death” in newspaper death notices to avoid public stigma, should be called what it is. I personally consider suicide brought on bullying to be murder.

Creating psychologically healthy, safe and fair workplaces is imperative to preventing this sort of tragedy, but equally important is being present for anyone who is being bullied. Victims often feel as though they are alone and there is no way out of their pain. For this reason, family, friends and even bystanders play a critical role. If you see someone struggling ask, “How can I help?”

If you are the one who is struggling please reach out to someone you trust. If you don’t have someone, please call one of the excellent organizations below. They will also help friends figure out how to help you. And remember, you’re not alone.

The Trevor Project Lifeline: 866-488-7386

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 800-273-8255

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When the Bully-in-Chief Directly Affects Your Workplace

When Donald Trump won the Republican nomination, I hoped that my work to create psychologically healthy, safe and fair workplaces and end adult bullying wouldn’t have to be applied to the highest office in the land. But now we find ourselves with a chief executive who is forbidding the sharing of data from the National Park Service, the USDA and the Environmental Protection Agency. This is bullying in the extreme.

When I began my work on adult bullying, it was received with skepticism. Now it is suddenly starting to resonate with those skeptics who find themselves living in fear because their rights and privileges are being targeted by the Bully-in-Chief. The only good news is that Trump is doubling down on revealing who he is and what he stands for—himself. This is good news because it should encourage our elected representatives to reinforce the fragile checks and balances that are required to ensure the integrity of democracy. If they don't, the entire world will fall into what I call The Bully’s Trap—the ensnaring of the innocent by creating toxic circumstances in which they incriminate themselves.

Stanley Milgram in "Obedience to Authority" wrote, "... ordinary people simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible disruptive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority." 

We are witnessing this disruptive process in real time in prime time. It has never been more urgent for us to understand how bullies function to inform our response. 

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Trump Chief of Staff Models the First Tenet of Bullies: Deflection

When bullies want to take escape blame they turn to the classic “Ds” of bullydom: deflection, deception, deceit and denial. Donald Trump’s Chief of Staff Reince Priebus was using more deflection than a Federation starship under attack when he recently spoke to George Stephanopoulos and threatened the head of the Office of Government Ethics. He warned that Director Walter Shaub should “be careful” and suggested he should be investigated for supporting Hillary Clinton during the election.

Trying to switch attention and blame to another party is a classic bullying tactic and a hallmark of the Trump team. The truth is that they need to grow up, wake up and come clean. We still haven’t seen Trump’s taxes and until they start fulfilling the minimum requirements of office, they have given us no reason to believe anything they say.

Bullying in the workplace and creating psychologically health, safe and fair workplaces is the focus of Andrew Faas’ new book From Bully to Bull’s-Eye: Move Your Organization Out of the Line of Fire.

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Predicting What Trump Will Do Next

We keep reading in the media about the utter unpredictability of Donald Trump, but I say this is nonsense. From my study of bullies and how bullying works, I know exactly what he’s going to do next. But first, let me give you some background.

Over the years I’ve become something of an expert on adult bullies—I was one early in my career until a wise supervisor set me straight, later on I sadly confess I was at times a bystander to bullying. I’ve been the victim of bullying so severe I was diagnosed with a form of PTSD, and today I’m an advocate for victims of bullying. I’ve dedicated my career to preventing and ending bullying in the workplace, which has inspired two books as well as my foundation’s current partnership with the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and our joint Emotion Revolution in the Workplace initiative.

So I can reasonably declare that I’ve learned how bullies work. They are masters of manipulation, deflection, deception, deceit and denial and no one is better at bullying than Donald Trump. Bullies are particularly dangerous when their back is against the wall and the growing agitation about Trump’s connection with Russia is going to have his back against the bricks very soon. The onus is on Congress and the Republicans to force disclosure before the inauguration because it will be easier to prevent Trump from being inaugurated than to try to impeach him afterward. My prediction is if that happens he will do everything he can to maintain his power and control.  He will abuse the power of the presidency up to and including drastic things like martial law.

We only have one week to prevent this disastrous occurrence and I’m deeply concerned. I shared that concern in December when I wrote about my 97-year-old mother who was in the Dutch Resistance in World War II and whose greatest regret was that she didn’t do more to save the victims of the Nazis. That’s why I’m urging you to do what you can and inundate your representatives to demand full disclosure. Don’t let Trump and his people shut you down. Make your voice be heard before it’s too late. America’s future depends upon it.    

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Streep Gives America a Master Class on Facing a Bully

The woman who is arguably America’s greatest actress has just given us a master class on how to take on a bully. As everyone knows by now, Meryl Streep addressed our incoming Bully-in-Chief during her acceptance speech at the Golden Globes when Viola Davis presented her with a lifetime achievement award. Her voice brimming with emotion, Streep elegantly and simply laid out Donald Trump without ever mentioning him by name as Patrick Pacheco points out in “Streep’s Golden Globes Attack on Trump: A Brilliantly Simple Anti-Bullying Strategy.”  

Trump’s response has been an attempt to bully her into silence by calling her an “over-rated actress” (19 Academy Award nominations, three wins; 29 Golden Globe nominations, eight wins; 14 BAFTA nominations; two wins; 14 Screen Actors Guild Awards, two wins). But what made Streep’s speech so masterful? Without ever getting personal, she clearly laid out the facts that made her argument strong and presented a clear call to action—support the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) as we head into what promises to be a difficult, and even dangerous, time for the free press. America was listening. According to Forbes, the little-known organization has received an unprecedented rise in donations. Brava, Ms. Streep!

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Canada's So-Called Literary Heavyweights Like Margaret Atwood are Dangerously Wrong

Canada's former Ambassador to the United States once observed "They write well – they speak well – but they are wrong." This applies in spades to an open letter by the so-called "literary heavyweights" calling for an investigation into the handling of the Galloway case by the University of British Columbia. Galloway was fired by UBC after being accused of sexual assault, sexual harassment, bullying and other inappropriate behavior. 

This article highlights how the open letter by a group of writers, particularly Margret Atwood, backfired because they were trying to protect one of their own under the notion that the UBC handling of the scandal was not fair and transparent. Quite rightly Atwood was called out on her position to which she responded: "My position is that UBC process was flawed and failed both sides, and the rest of my position that the model of the Salem Witchcraft Trials is not a good one." 

As an expert in harassment and bullying in the workplace, I must point out that Atwood's position on this is dead wrong and dangerous. The process did not "fail both sides." 

UBC handled this scandal properly. To open this up to further inquiry will not only require that the targets of the harassment and bullying be further victimized by additional exposure and being forced to relive what they have experienced. It will also discourage others who are abused, harassed and bullied to come forward.

If Galloway feels his firing was unfair, he has every right to appeal. Given that he has signed a confidentiality agreement, this suggests that he has settled with the university. The open letter by his friends is an attempt to fight the dismissal in the court of public opinion is frighteningly wrong insomuch that if they were successful in doing this, organizations will continue to turn the victims into the villains, which is one of the biggest, if not the biggest obstacle, in encouraging targets of the predators to come forward.

Atwood is considered to be a "feminist icon." Considering the position she has taken on this and her premature defense of Jian Ghomeshi, Canada's notorious sexual predator and workplace bully, suggests that she is the opposite—an anti-feminist icon. It would be interesting to hear her weigh in on Fox's Rodger Ailes, Donald Trump and Billy Bush.

Bravo to Marsha Lederman and the Globe and Mail for calling out Canada's tight-knit literary community on this.

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Have We Entered a New Age of Bullying?

More than a decade of bullying prevention in public schools is being undone by the messages spread by the American president-elect. The Southern Poverty Law Center has recorded the highest surge in reports of bullying, harassment and racist displays since 9/11. My fear is that bullies will also feel emboldened to bring this sort of behavior into the workplace. On a recent speaking tour in the Midwest, people came up to me afterward to tell stories of how employers used their “employed at will” status to remind them they could be fired at any time. This excellent article by anti-bullying author Emily Bazelon in the New York Times takes a closer look in Bullying in the Age of Trump. But it’s important to remember that one of the first steps in curbing bullying, especially in the workplace, is to find out how employees feel about their jobs and why they feel that way. This is why the Faas Foundation has partnered with the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence to survey working people about their complicated feelings about their work. You can participate by taking this survey, and please share it with those you know. It’s only by making our voices heard that we will be able to create the psychologically healthy, safe and fair workplaces we so desperately need. 

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