What is Workplace Bullying?

Dr. Purushothaman
December 6, 2013

Bullying in the workplace is a very common occurrence and highly difficult to tackle with also. Groups of people or in certain cases just individuals alone make use of aggressive and unreasonable behavior with their subordinates or co-workers. Very frequently bullying in the workplace can take different forms and it could be physical abuse, verbal or non-verbal, psychological, or just humiliation.

Childhood bullies could be tackled with easily with adult intervention and counseling given to the person involved in bullying. However, bullying in the workplace and finding a solution to the same is a daunting task. This habit has been perpetrated by the management and is found to be either covert or overt bullying.
There are in fact different kinds of definitions in place of a single formal definition to explain bullying in the workplace. While a few opine that it is the behavior and actions of a harmful boss, a few others are of the opinion that it just is restricted to the immediate supervisor, boss or manager. While bullying is going on, there is a strong combination of different malicious tactics and hostile communication that is used with the employee.

In some cases workplace bullying and mistreatment mar the health of the employee as the person that is bullying will use different styles like humiliating, intimidating, threatening or sabotaging the work that the subordinate is doing.

There is a constant flow of aggressive communication that disturbs the person who is being bullied to no end. And there is also manipulation of work and actions that will degrade or humiliate the individual to no end. This will create a totally unhealthy working atmosphere for the target and as a result there is a crumbling down of the moral strength of the target.

Bullying in the workplace can occur in different forms and in different contexts too. you may identify this kind of an unruly behavior as bullying when there is a frequent repetition of this kind of humiliating behavior, is enduring, is constantly increasing in aggression and the target lacks the power to defend himself. As a result there is a great amount of job stress and dissatisfaction that overwhelms the person. This in turn leads to lower levels of morale and a feeling of helplessness that at times might end up in dire consequences.

As presumed, it is more women when compared to men that fall victims to bullying targets in the workplace. Cyber bullying is the latest type of bullying that is doing rounds on the internet circuits.

Read Related Recent Articles