The Day I Quit My Job: The story of a bully boss

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The Day I Quit My Job: The story of a bully boss

When I was in my mid-20s, I moved to New England to work as a shop manager for a construction company. A family business of about 40 employees, I worked directly for the owner, Jack. 

I remember like it was yesterday the very first day I arrived at work. Parking my truck and turning the corner toward the building, I heard before seeing my new boss screaming at the top of his lungs at a woman, who I learned later was a sister who worked for him. I really thought they were going to come to blows, but she seemed to be beaming right back at him, so I made myself as invisible as possible and continued on my way into the office.

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What is the thorniest issue that keeps your employees up at night?

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What is the thorniest issue that keeps your employees up at night?

In the top 3 of any list ranking the most common workplace issues, you will see “interpersonal conflict” or “bullying and harassment”—not pay, not recognition, not opportunities for promotion... 

“The accelerated pace of change in today’s workplace and in our overall society is one more factor impacting workplace mental health.” [Source: SHRM]  

It’s no surprise that the most common workplace issues on almost every survey list are not about pay, promotion, or benefits. We see that interpersonal conflict, bullying and harassment, communication and relationship problems consistently top these lists.

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Kick Off 2023 With Strong Team Agreements

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Kick Off 2023 With Strong Team Agreements

As team lead, manager, or head of your organization, you want to ensure that your teams are cohesive, collaborative, high performing, and strong enough to weather any stormy seas of conflict, crisis, and disruptive behaviors.

This is the stuff of team agreements.

What I sometimes hear from folks is, "Sure, yeah, of course our teams have agreements. Everybody's on the same page." What turns out to be true is that their team agreements are unspoken, unwritten and un-negotiated—meaning, not designed in any thoughtful or clear manner that will set the team up for success.

They are informal agreements that have become the rules of behavior over time and morphed into the organizational culture. They become "the way things are done around here."

For better or worse, they are binding on team members. They may not be spelled out in the policies and procedures manual (or even ethical or legal...), but it doesn't take long for new team members to figure out what is rewarded and what is punished. The so-called agreements continue as the norm, and nobody questions if they're good for the team, the workforce, or the organization.


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What's Behind the "Bully Boss"?

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What's Behind the "Bully Boss"?

According to research from the Boss Whispering Institute and others, often the leader who exhibits abrasive behavior doesn’t intend to do harm to others. They don’t lie awake at night plotting ways to make their coworkers miserable. They often don’t even see that their behavior is having a negative impact on their coworkers’ emotions or morale -- ‘It’s nothing personal, it’s just business. We're getting a job done here.’

Underneath the surface of disrespectful, unacceptable behavior, these leaders are not unlike you and me. They feel stress, anxiety, and uncertainty about their future the same way most of us do. Moreover, as leaders they have a spotlight bearing down on them -- when things go wrong it’s the leader who takes responsibility. They don’t want to be seen as incompetent, they may feel threatened and fear failure.

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Emotional abuse at work: 8 warning signs that there’s a problem

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Emotional abuse at work: 8 warning signs that there’s a problem

“The accelerated pace of change in today’s workplace and in our overall society is one more factor impacting workplace mental health.” [Source: SHRM]

It’s no surprise that the most common workplace issues on almost every survey list are not about pay, promotion, or benefits. We see that interpersonal conflict, bullying and harassment, communication and relationship problems consistently top these lists.

Recent statistics show that [Source: 2021 WBI U.S. Workplace Bullying Survey]:

  • 30% of adults are bullied at work (compared to 19% in 2017)

  • 43.2% of remote workers are bullied

  • 65% of bullies are bosses; 4% have admitted their bullying which represents 6.6 million individuals

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Solving the Abrasive Leader Dilemma – keep’em or let’em go?

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Solving the Abrasive Leader Dilemma – keep’em or let’em go?

In a recent HR meeting, I asked the legal team this question: “As an HR professional in an organization, what should you do if you discover that you have an abrasive leader (a bully) working in your company?”

In less than the time it took me to sit down from asking the question, all four HR attorneys agreed with each other that the answer was simple: “The person needs to be terminated immediately or as soon as you can line up the paper trail so you can fire them without repercussions.”

That was a pretty straightforward response as these sorts of panel discussions go – and brought into stark clarity for me the paralyzing dilemma that an abrasive leader can present to an organization.

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Why Abrasive Leaders Become "Winners Who Become Losers"

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Why Abrasive Leaders Become "Winners Who Become Losers"

It’s natural to make (negative) assumptions about the type of bosses and leaders who make our lives miserable at work—even including terms like “evil,” “a monster” or “insane.”

For professionals who are in the business of working toward a harmonious, engaged, productive, innovative workforce, it’s instructive if not crucial to unpack the package that is called the “abrasive leader.”


“Abrasive leaders become winners…”

First off, we know that abrasive leaders aren’t lacking in ability. In fact, it’s often their technical competence that led to their rise to management. Their skills in their field are rarely brought into question, and in many cases, it’s this competence that has management, leadership, and stakeholders often choosing to ignore the behavior—as it continues to poison the entire organization.

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Conflict resolution in the dog park

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Conflict resolution in the dog park

From where I sit as a mediator, conflict advisor and coach for abrasive leaders, there is conflict everywhere I look.

There are the good conflict outcomes I see when opposing ideas from dissimilar people get brought into the open and wrangled with toward a positive result for all; and the less-than-good outcomes that lead to violence, nasty lawsuits or complex court cases.

I love my seat at this messy table, and I respect the people around the world who sit at similar tables in the worthy work of engaging in and teaching conflict resolution.

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No More Jerks in the Workplace!

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No More Jerks in the Workplace!

It's heartening to get a fresh perspective and timely real-work examples of something I've been working with (and preaching about) for years. When I read Emma Goldberg’s article “No More Working for Jerks!” I found myself nodding and saying “Yep, that sounds about right.”

And I'm happy to share the good news:“For almost two years,” Goldberg writes, “a workforce that had shocking changes imposed on it has reconsidered its basic assumptions about how people treat each other in corporate life.”

In my work I’ve seen that for far too long abrasive managers have gotten away with behaving however they wanted to without fear of repercussions. They’ve held the power, usually by virtue of the perceived value they bring to the organization, and anyone who disagreed with them could just ‘put up or shut up.’

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Resologics provides conflict advising services to organizations to help them avoid disputes, optimize team dynamics for better outcomes, and reduce costs. The resologics team can be reached at 800.465.4141 | team@resologics.com | www.resologics.com

Five Steps to Build Better Team Relationships

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Five Steps to Build Better Team Relationships

Building great companies takes building great teams. Building great teams takes...conflict.

Sound counterintuitive! Especially in an economy where going out on a limb imposes a lot more risks than usual, who would want to add conflict to the equation?

It’s natural to avoid conflict. It’s what separated life and death for early cavemen; we have evolved but with that same wiring embedded in our psyche: “Keep things safe'' and “Don’t rock the boat.” In today’s world, avoiding conflict actually becomes a detriment in building the relationships teams need in order to work together and get things done.

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Do We Need a Mediator? Here’s How to Tell

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Do We Need a Mediator? Here’s How to Tell

When do you know you need mediation in your workplace?

The first thing to know is what mediation is (and isn’t) so that you’re equipped to recognize the need if and when conflict arises.

The second thing to know is that when your company has a built-in system to proactively manage conflict, then you will never have to face the question of needing mediation. But I’m getting ahead of myself, because here’s the reality: Few organizations have such a system, and my team is most often called in to provide mediation services when the client workplace situation has reached the crisis point – and spiraling out of control fast.

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How We’re Getting Hooked into Conflict at Work

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How We’re Getting Hooked into Conflict at Work

Have you ever said: “That person just presses my buttons”? If you’re human, then you’ve felt this at some time or another. You might recall a time when you reacted strongly to it emotionally, and the result was an escalation of the situation, maybe even a fight.

This can happen to the most enlightened, secure, experienced leader or manager. I have seen it often in my conflict engagement work with leaders and teams — and, I confess, I have hot buttons too!

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The Game-Changing Tool for Productive (and Pleasant) Work Conversations

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The Game-Changing Tool for Productive (and Pleasant) Work Conversations

What I know from my work as conflict advisor/mediator is that tough conversations are inevitable - in our work lives, community lives, and personal lives. And who in their right mind wants to have a difficult conversation?

Right - no one! So what we tend to do is avoid it, put if off for a day, a week, even a year. But does the issue go away? No, in fact, it festers and grows until it becomes something much more destructive and even dangerous. (That’s too often when we’re brought in to mediate a dispute or conflict that’s gotten out of control over months or even years.)

As an expert in conflict, I’m here to tell you conflict cannot be swept under the rug!

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How to Have Difficult Conversations (Rudeness and Lies): Part 2

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How to Have Difficult Conversations (Rudeness and Lies): Part 2

“'Honesty' in social life is often used as a cover for rudeness. But there is quite a difference between being candid in what you're talking about, and people voicing their insulting opinions under the name of honesty,” said Judith Martin aka Miss Manners in 2011. The First Lady of Etiquette was being interviewed about her years as a journalist.

Her nugget of wisdom still feels relevant today – maybe more so in an era of social-media bashing and bullying.

This has me thinking about honesty’s place in the work environment, so here are some thoughts in the second in our series of spotlighting difficult conversations— the kind that raise hackles, taint relationships and spark unproductive conflict—and how to address them.

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Why you may be blind to bad behavior at work and the harm it is causing

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Why you may be blind to bad behavior at work and the harm it is causing

As leaders, we hold the responsibility of ensuring our workplaces are safe, healthy environments for our workers. We want our employees to be happy and productive. Does any management team sit around the boardroom table and pull up the powerpoint, “How can we perpetuate workplace bullying?”

Of course not! Except…that’s exactly what we’re doing when we accept the myths about leadership that blind us to the damage that abrasive behavior is doing to our workers and our company. It’s more comfortable to accept these myths as explanations than it is to initiate the difficult conversations that must be had.

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Boss Whispering: Solving the problem of abrasive workplace behavior

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Boss Whispering: Solving the problem of abrasive workplace behavior

The Cambridge University Human Resources Department defines behavior as being unacceptable if:

It is unwanted by the recipient.

It has the purpose or effect of violating the recipient’s dignity and/or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment

Unacceptable behavior is serious business.

As a conflict advisor and coach, I’ve worked with countless leaders who didn’t know they were exhibiting unacceptable behavior. I’m talking about more than a one-time personality clash — it’s chronic behavior that chips away at person’s morale and, literally, ability to do their job. It’s behavior that needs addressing before it permeates an entire organization.

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Outside Help for an Inside Problem: What can mediation do for you?

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Outside Help for an Inside Problem: What can mediation do for you?

Have you ever witnessed something that had you wondering if you should call someone? Someone on the ground, a car accident, a kid by themselves— these situations leave most of us wondering if everything is alright, if help is already coming, if we need to do anything, or if the situation will resolve itself.

Deciding to bring in an outside mediator is kind of like that. Except you don’t watch a split-second event occur; instead, it unfolds over weeks or months, drip by drip, seeping into the environment and culture, until it almost becomes normalized.

But just because something is normal does not mean it’s okay.

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How to Have Difficult Conversations (When You Know You're Right): Part 1

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How to Have Difficult Conversations (When You Know You're Right): Part 1

“They may forget what you said—but they will never forget how you made them feel." Carl Buechner had the right idea in 1971, you’ve since heard variations: It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it!

In the heat of a workplace disagreement or tough conversation (or person) that hooks us emotionally—these are the moments we need to remember these words most. But it’s exactly when we forget them. Our emotions get the better of us and we say things we don’t mean or, worse, that we regret later. The destruction that follows is swift and sometimes really difficult to repair.

Workplace relationships can be tricky, because while most people say “I truly want your honest feedback” they aren’t actually telling the truth. Even stickier is how we feel about telling someone higher up the command chain when they’re wrong.

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Why Good Conduct is Good Business - and Crucial to Your Success

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Why Good Conduct is Good Business - and Crucial to Your Success

When someone consistently “rubs us the wrong way,” we often struggle to separate the behavior from the person. We see the act, attribute it to the actor, and the two become synonymous. What follows is a classic relationship slippery slope that usually ends up badly. What we forget in those situations is that behavior can change—and not always for the worse!

As leaders of our organization, we are responsible for our personal conduct on behalf of our company’s values and for the sake of our workforce. This might seem like an optional “soft skill,” but from what I’ve seen as a conflict advisor and coach to leaders, I believe it’s a crucial part of leadership success.

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Are There Only Bad Guys or Good Guys in the Workplace?

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Are There Only Bad Guys or Good Guys in the Workplace?

In a world of Hollywood movies and childhood stories of right vs. wrong, good vs. evil, it’s natural that we see ‘heroes’ and ‘villains’ in our lives. We’re the main characters in our stories, and the role of antagonist is often carried by those who make our lives difficult. For many in the workplace this means the boss.

Let’s reframe that script for a moment by remembering that our bosses (or anyone who has authority over us) are people too. They are main characters of their own story, with their own dreams and struggles and interests, trying to make it through life just like the rest of us.

So why do they struggle to be kind? Why do they feel they have to “flog work forward?” Why is aggression their go-to leadership style? How do we marry this discrepancy?

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