We’ve all heard about toxic bosses unleashing hell on their workers but a number of recent studies show managers are increasingly complaining about being bullied by their own staff – and usually, it’s women who are the most vulnerable.
In her 2010-published study, Dr Jacquie Hutchinson, a former executive director of HR for the ABC turned employee relations expert, discovered a new and surprising trend where employees displayed bullying behaviour towards their bosses.
The study, Workplace Bullying in the Australian Public Sector, found workplace competitiveness, job insecurity and resistance to organisational change were all cited as reasons for staff bullying their superiors. Ironically, it appeared female managers – who were often thought to be more approachable and consultative – were targeted more often than men.
“Women appear to be easier targets,” Hutchinson, a lecturer at the University of Western Australia’s (UWA) Business School, told Women’s Agenda. “Despite the adamant arguments from many interviewees that workplace bullying was gender-neutral, there was a definite preoccupation with women managers, as both targets and perpetrators of workplace bullying.”
Hutchinson believes women managers fall victim to bullying by staff because of continued resistance to the idea of women as leaders. “Like it or not, Australian organisations lag behind many other countries in accepting that women have much to offer as leaders,” she says.
Unlike traditional bullying where yelling or other aggressive behaviour might be displayed, Hutchinson found bullying by staff was often conducted in secretive, sabotaging ways. This included staff leaving managers to take the blame for unfinished work; withholding information; not turning up to meetings; and sending anonymous and defamatory comments about managers to more senior supervisors or to people outside the organisation.
“Over a period of time the manager doesn’t feel they are getting people’s support and this withdrawal of support can be humiliating and career limiting,” says Hutchinson.
Hutchinson’s study also found that such bullying by staff is often a form of resistance to what many people consider stressful working environments with unrelenting workloads, too few resources and unreasonable deadlines. She believes bullying will only be satisfactorily prevented when these organisational problems are addressed.
Hutchinson is not alone in her findings that recent literature also highlights the use of “covert and insidious” forms of bullying against female managers.
In 2010, the Australian Productivity Commission estimated that workplace bullying costs the country $14.8 billion annually, a figure based on direct costs including absenteeism, staff turnover and compensation claims. At the very least upward bullying can impact job satisfaction and confidence. But the effects on someone’s psychological and physical well-being can also be debilitating – leading to many talented managers leaving their roles and being turned off future leadership positions.
Dr Martha Knox-Haly, an executive coach and organisational development specialist, says upward bullying is “not unusual” in all kinds of workplaces, both public and private. She says in the private sector she has seen bullying by staff take a less procedural form – with the “sneaky, politically skilful white-anting of someone, involving forming alliances with others”.
“If the manager doesn’t have as strong a personality as the subordinate, staff tend to instinctively go with the person with the strongest presence – regardless of where in the hierarchy they are,” says Dr Knox-Haly, who is the principal of MKA Risk Mitigation in Sydney. “They’ll follow the subordinate who is vindictive and nasty because they are too frightened to take them on. If the pack turns on you it can be very destructive.” Workcover NSW defines bullying as “repeated unreasonable behaviour directed towards a worker or group of workers that creates a risk to health and safety”.
Tom, a policy implementer interviewed in the UWA study, recounted the story of a new young woman taking over a managerial role in his organisation after a “tough older guy” left. Although he’d done most of the cost cutting and redundancies before he departed, there was still ongoing change but “not so bad”.
“She tried to be more consultative and open with the staff but she got the backlash,” Tom said. “She put up with all sorts of bad things being said behind her back. One day she came to work and pinned to the office personnel directory next to her name was a picture of a woman’s body in a bikini with her (the manager’s head) stuck on top.”
Although Tom found it hard to understand why the female manager was treated so badly, he implied that if she had been more like “an old fashioned bully, nobody would have acted up”. However, the study also found that women who enacted a more masculinised style of leadership also attracted bullying.
“A number of examples were provided where women managers were targeted because they were perceived as being too bloody tough,” says Hutchinson. “Women it seemed could not win.”
Dr Knox-Haly adds that problems often arise when you have a subordinate who has a very direct, autocratic style with a dominant personality, coming up against a manager who has a more consensus-based approach.
“The manager is more relationship rather than task focussed but the staff member doesn’t understand and can misconstrue the style as soft,” she says.
“Good leaders can change the world but people won’t step up into these roles if there’s not enough support.”