Barb, I'm very pleased to see you "take on" this subject matter. I've been self-employed for over 15 years now, but my last employer who was the owner of a medium-sized company was a very big bully who threw things around the room and did a lot of name calling. To this day I still have dreams of these scarey moments which were personally denagrading.

I believe putting an end to office bullying starts in the schools and homes. We must start teaching our children that there is no place in our society for bullying AND demonstrate for them through teaching events what effects bullying has on others.

Thanks for sharing this topic. Look forward to checking in with this site regularly.

Barb, As a career counselor, I have both heard about and experienced bullying bosses. While much of bullying behavior is obvious, blatant, and easily identifiable as such, I find the more insidious undermining of confidence and self esteem by bullying bosses to be even more damaging in the long run. Especially when people are not certain that the problem is the boss's behavior and not their own (fostered by suspicions planted by the boss), the effects can be particularly damaging and long-lasting. Many of the people I have counseled have had their confidence in their abilities and possibilities for success and career satisfaction severely limited by those false impressions planted by bullying bosses.

Thank you for bringing this issue to our attention.

Wouldn't it be great if this sort of behavior had stopped in the workplace by now? I realised as I read the post that my first boss was a bully. That is going back to the early 1960's when I was working in London. (I will not name the company, sufice to say that I was working for the UK arm of an international charity)! I was very young and had no idea of how to get out of the situation, as I knew that telling the truth would only make things worse. This was before HR departments in small companies. I resigned in the end stating my reason that I was leaving the country; which I did, but for an extended vacation. It is a good thing that you, Barbara, and your colleagues are here to help others today so that they do not have to resort to the extreme measures that I felt I was forced to undertake.

Unfortunately there is way too much of this, not only in the workplace, but in life in general.

At root, bullying is a very rough behavior used to enforce a certain social order and level. If you witness this and do nothing about it, you may as well be the bully yourself.

We regularly see our most social and political leaders beating each other up verbally, emotionally, and in other non-physical ways.

We spend a lot of time and money educating our children, but we all too often fail to educate, train, and practice with them the most important things... like how to be more fully human, how to recognize and understand and deal with emotions and emotional extremes, and even how to recognize and deal with bullying and so many other aspects of being human and living in an "organized" society.

I've seen plenty of situations where both men and women can be bullies. Even lower level employees can be bullies. I have seen situations where employees who cannot go higher in their workplaces because of lack of personal and professional skills resort to threaten the use of discrimination laws if employers do not give them some perk or benefit or promotion or give in to some other demand of the employee.

The surprising thing is how often employees can get away with this. Going to court costs an employer a whole lot more money than it ever costs the employee.

I have also seen the exact opposite where bosses and other high level employees are keenly aware there is a lower level employee who is smart enough and does have the talent use all kinds of methods to keep the employee down.

What a waste of time and talent! Let the talent move on to be more productive for the company and ultimately for society! Bosses who do not recognize, appreciate, and promote talent should be fired. Unfortunately, there are plenty of companies where the best talent ends up walking out the door.

Bullying is at root a human behavior not everyone comes born with the right awareness, aptitude and attitude to fend off much less turn the tables on and succeed against.

Why not provide training and testing and practice in our schools so that over time more people are aware of these behaviors and know ways to deal with them?

Why aren't these things just as important as basic math and reading in our educational system?

Given tone of the comments, I think this topic struck a cord with people. Exposing abusive behavior is important--too often it is normalized and becomes acceptable. Thanks for your thoughts.

This topic of bullying is regrettably all too common and reflective of the stress we observe and experience in the contemporary workplace. As a senior level manager supporting 25 employees for the past 11 years, I have experienced employees with undiagnosed mental illnesses intimidating co-workers in ways that create an atmosphere of fear, frustration, and constriction. Needless to say this compromises not only the working relationships but ultimately impacts the work to be done.

A resource I have found helpful in working with complex behaviors such as borderline personality disorders (BPD)is a book by Mason and Kreger, "Stop Walking On Eggshells". The book portrays situations that are all too familiar and presents options for how to be in relationship with co-workers with a BPD.

Barbara, thank you for coming online with your wise counsel and clear insights about work that evokes our real selves...

I'm familiar with "Stop Walking on Eggshells" and thank you for mentioning it, Doug. It would certainly be a useful resource for people who find themselves afraid of upsetting the boss, or anyone else in their lives for that matter.