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Workplace bullying is like a house fire without smoke. There you sit in your living room, wiping your brow, surprised by the warmth but not recognizing the fire. The sense of betrayal is a symptom of your benevolent view of the world, for surely your home is safe. Suddenly, overcome by the heat, you attempt to make a move, but it is too late; you are already engulfed in flames.
As part of an ongoing and large-scale research study, I have interviewed over 200 targets across states, countries, and continents who have been victims of workplace abuse. The participants in my study were overwhelmingly unaware they were under attack until they were bleeding out from their wounds, mortal injuries inflicted in schools, colleges, nonprofits, hospitals, corporations, government offices, and other institutions they once considered their surrogate home.
The cycle of workplace bullying, however, is highly predictable—the duplicate plotlines have been recycled across countless studies. Inside my interviews, victims lamented that had they known the cycle of the bully war, they might have lessened the blow, left the battlefield, or at least better braced for impact. Though researchers have represented the stages of workplace abuse differently, all of the unfoldings follow a distinct path, for as wise Heinz Leymann (1990) often proclaimed, there are only so many ways to break a person at work.
Below is a fictionalized but typical trajectory of workplace bullying as widely cited across research studies (Duffy and Sperry, 2014; Einersen, Hoel, Zapf, and Cooper, 2020; Namie and Namie, 2011). It is presented as a seven-act play staring Kate and Sherrie.
Act 1—Meet the Superstar
Kate is a compassionate innovator, uninterested in office politics. She possesses exemplary skills and is often sought after for counsel. Kind and compassionate, Kate is well-liked and deeply valued in her work and home community. Over the last decade, she has not had a single negative write-up at work and her office walls are full of accolades.
Act 2—Jealousy and Casebuilding
Sherrie recently joined the team as a new manager. She is narcissistic, a pro at projecting confidence and competence while offloading her work on those she considers beneath her. Jealous of Kate’s spotlight and creative ideas and perturbed by her superior performance, which regularly recalibrates the status quo, Sherrie starts to watch, gather, and prepare for battle. While outwardly presenting herself as Kate’s confidant, Sherrie actively pulls from her long history of waging war.
Act 3—Precipitating Event
Kate introduces an innovative new protocol backed by research that charges the organization to amend its current approach to patient care. She garners wide support in the larger medical community but quickly comes under Sherrie’s scrutiny. This precipitating event is not the cause of the attacks but the initial invitation for Sherrie to launch the first grenade and recruit soldiers to join her army.
Act 4- Underground Battle Begins: Gossip, Manipulation, and Sabotage
The initial battles are silent, enacted in cafeterias, over after-work drinks, and during hallway chatter. The weapons are fake fawning of concern, innuendoes of incompetence, and gossip of wrongdoing. The secondary low-level attacks are misplaced invitations to essential meetings, project sabotage, and withdrawal of resources to crack Kate’s confidence and weaken her artillery that she will require to retaliate.
To define the battle lines, Sherrie expresses her concern over Kate’s performance to Human Resources and directs them to initiate the paper trail she knows is necessary for termination. HR rebuffs, citing Kate’s unblemished records and stacks of accomplishments, but Sherrie is relentless in her request. Kate’s friends are quietly plucked from their offices for interviews in which it is suggested they should cut contact unless they want to become “part of the process.” In private meetings, Sherrie berates and belittles Kate while offering intermittent compliments, just enough praise to unsteady Kate’s perception of what is starting to unfold.
Act 5—Escalating Attacks and Mobbing
The war is now well underway, Kate has become a leper in the hallways and completely excluded from all professional and social interactions. With a target clearly displayed on her back, bystanders fully join ranks with Sherrie and openly participate in spreading rumors and icing Kate out. Kate’s blood pressure rises, her migraines return, and just when she needs her friends the most, she is left standing completely alone with zero explanation for her ex-communication.
Act 6—Final Resignation
Amidst the consequence of deteriorating health directly tied to the abuse, atop an HR performance plan that was created for failure, Kate concedes and tenders her resignation. Kate's company is well aware of Sherrie's unethical behavior and worried about potential consequences and legal repercussions. Thus to cover their tracks and avoid reputational damage, they offer Kate a financial settlement with the prerequisite that she sign a nondisclosure agreement, thus forever silencing the story of their abuse and allowing them to control the public narrative.
Act 7—Coverup and Recovery
Sherrie gloats as security stands watch as Kate places the last picture frame into her box. The Vice President surveys the battleground, laments over the carnage, and concocts a cover-up. Lacking evidence of wrongdoing, the company leans on Orwell’s doublespeak to cover their crimes—“the stress of the job got to her” or “we wish we could explain but it is a human resource issue.” Bystanders digest and regurgitate the rhetoric to avoid owning the catastrophe they contributed to by omission or commission.
Kate suffers reputational damage, financial hardship, loss in her belief of a benevolent world, and symptoms of complex PTSD which will live in her coat pocket for the next five years. Though Kate will not find support nor justice through Human Resources, company leaders, or bystanders—she will find her bold voice again in her advocacy for victims of workplace abuse. Her power will be restored by empowering those who were also stripped of their dignity.
Copyright (2020). Dorothy Courtney Suskind, Ph.D.
References
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Duffy, M., & Sperry, L. (2014). Overcoming mobbing: A recovery guide for workplace aggression and bullying. New York: Oxford University Press.
Duffy, M. P. & Yamada, D. C. (2018). Workplace bullying and mobbing in the United States. Santa Barbara: Praeger.
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Einarsen Ståle, Hoel, H., Zapf, D., & Cooper, C. L. (Eds.). (2020). Bullying and harassment in the workplace: theory, research and practice (3rd ed.). CRC Press.
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