You’ve had a great weekend and getting back to work doesn’t seem so bad this week. Traffic is heavy yet it’s moving at a steady pace. You make a few calls on the way to work. You pull into the office parking lot and your ready to go.
As you make your way to your desk, your boss (or co-worker) approaches you and says in a loud and condescending way, “You seem to be pretty relaxed for someone who dropped the ball on our most important deadline!”
Change “project” to any of your responsibilities at work. Change “deadline” to any thing else important that is fitting for you job. One thing we can’t change is the unprovoked attack by a person who has no sense of the impact of their actions on us. They have no sense of the impact on morale around us. Or, they do understand the consequences of this behavior and choose not to care in that moment.
Bully in the Workplace?
While bullying behavior is derailing for most, it doesn’t have to be. Over the next few months we will be talking about resolving conflicts with difficult people.
Today we’ll start with mindset. We take can charge of any situation if we’re prepared. In this particular situation there are two important start points:
- We need to assess the situation. Is our boss or co-worker’s behavior one incident or is it chronic behavior?If it’s one episode over a significant period of time, we may be able to reasonably discuss the person’s actions. Usually, they’re embarrassed about their behavior and will keep it in check in the future. We also may be able to forgive the behavior more readily.If it is chronic behavior, we need to be more strategic. The strategic mindset starts with our self-talk. When bullying, aggressive behavior occurs, we need to take space and think about what happened. To be effective and appropriate in our response, it’s vital to say to ourselves, “this is not about me.” Depersonalizing the incident will make it easier to respond to and let go of the attack. Next, we need to plan our response to the bully about their behavior. If we go underground and avoid it, it will only happen again. (more on this next time)
- Practice: Rehearsing our response and the potential excuses, blame and minimization by the bully are important for two reasons. We are specific and to the point about how this person’s behavior is inappropriate.And two, we know what potential responses to expect. Becoming fearless when it comes to conflict helps create a more effective workplace as problems are addressed as they arise.Also, bullying behavior that is not addressed opens up the door for a cascade of problems down the line.
Please send your responses and thoughts. We would like to hear about your most challenging work situation with a difficult person and may use it as an example in our next newsletter.